


The Shepard of Andromeda

by Arcah



Series: Stories of the Shepard of Andromeda [2]
Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Crossover, F/M, Fix-It
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-22
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-02-05 07:01:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 47,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12789309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arcah/pseuds/Arcah
Summary: As the reaper war ends, the galaxy faces the aftermath. Starvation looms with the capitol worlds and colonies in ruins. To save millions, the Andromeda Initiative is conceived. Sending millions to Andromeda is the unified galaxy's bid for survival. Along those chosen, is no one less then the savior of the galaxy herself.And no one thought to ask her.This is a re-imagining of Andromeda's key events through Shepards POV. Pairings and characters will be added as we go.





	1. Chapter 0 Prologue

The shepard of Andromeda

Chapter 0; Prelude

The reaper war was faught. Not won, like the news would want you to believe. The damage our homeworlds sustained was far too severe to call it a victory.  
A Turian victory, perhaps. Cold calculus. There reapers were dead, and we were still standing.  
A unified galaxy. 

With our homeworlds in ruins and our economy still freefalling, our people starving, we have a lot of problems left to solve. Still, reapers are no longer among the problems.  
Dead reapers are, but that is a story for another time.

The Geth have proven to be our greatest saviors ever since the war ended, ironically. The metal boogey-men now were handing out food and medical supplies faster then even the Alliance and Hieragy combined could. With the Citadel thoroughly sacked, and our homeworlds ruined, Tuchanka and Rannoch became a safe haven. The balance of power had shifted throughout the galaxy. Where the Asari once stood proud and tall, now they were bent in sorrow over the damage to Thessia, and their own 'peacekeeping' reputation with the revelation that their government was hiding a prothean beacon for millenia.

And at the crux of all this change had stood one woman, Jane Shepard.  
N7. Council Spectre. And savior of the galaxy.

Yet trillions had no idea of her existance, with the reapers ways of inhibiting communications and the extranet alongside with the massive death-toll. The sole exceptions turned out to be the Geth, who through their tied contiousness were all intimately familiar with the human commander, and the Quarians, thanks to the efforts of Admiral Tali'Zorah vas Normandy.  
The Geth's personalities given to them by the sacrifice of the geth platform designated 'Legion'.  
She saw that same familiarity in every Geth she encountered after her second skyfall. 

Right before the citadel and relays rained red hell-fire upon the reapers, she had screamed and pleaded to the Geth to trust her in a full scale shut-down of their server systems.  
She had asked them to die. And leave the fate of billions of Geth in her hands, the galaxy's hands.  
EDI's trust in her had helped. And ultimately saved them. As when the Geth woke from slumber days after the end of the war, they found themselves being repaired by their former-masters. 

The poster picture for the Initiative had been discovery, to emblazon hope in a war-ruined galaxy. But the crude reality behind it was far more realistic and grim.  
The homeworlds and their ruined colonies were unable to sustain the population of the Milky way as it stands now. Four worlds with a decimated infra-structure, one which is ruins, and one which was for the better part of 300 year uninhabited, were not able to feed the trillions of hungry souls alive right now.  
The galaxy at large was staring at an even more massive death-toll waiting to happen. Even with cutting edge technology, and a unified galaxy, starvation loomed.

Thus, the Andromeda Initiave was formed, sold under a banner of finding adventure and setteling a new galaxy. Millions of people would be brought into cryo for a 600 year journey. Send in waves of ark ships. People in cryo didn't eat. They only expend energy. The only commodity which wasnt seeing massive shortages.  
Post-War shipyards were still at full operating capability. Plans were drawn up for a rudimentary 'Citadel' to act as a government, the Nexus. As well as plans for Ark-ships.  
Funding came through a mysterious individual who had taken control of the massive funds of Cerberus, who also served to speed Shepards recovery after her second planet fall onto Earth. The shadow broker donated substantially to the Initiative. And a front-person-poster-girl was found in Jien Garson.

The Initiative was born. One by one the ships were readied to sustain hundreds of thousands of people in cryo. Each Ark made to fit the specific needs of its assigned race.  
All would sleep during the voyage, save for the single artifical intelligence that would tend to their delicate needs like a mother over her children.

And so the journey began, as the Nexus and Ark ships set off towards Andromeda.

 

"Shepard. When you read this, know I did what I thought was best. "  
\- Miranda


	2. Beginnings

Citadel, positioned in a geo-stationary orbit around planet Earth, Sol system.

Seeing operation sword play out in the skies above felt surreal. Like a young child's hand guiding the ship along its shaky course the SSV Kilimanjaro's trajectory banked from port to stern.  
Only this time the quakes don't come from short legs and lack of coordination of a child, but from reaper-fire. Sustained-reaper fire.  
Like a toy, she broke in two, a massive section of the forward hull snapping off like it is polymer plastic.  
Surreal.  
Yet it formed tears in Shepards eyes. To see her mothers ship end in a fiery blaze as Hannah Shepard pushed the ship onto a ramming course and collided it frontally with a massive reaper capital ship, then detonated the Kilimanjaro's drivecore to finish the monsterous atrocity.  
Her burned and battered body went rigid as she braced herself against the tides of emotions. Shoring up her defences and compartimentalizing her feelings, as she was taught, was failing her in fast succession as she thought about her options.  
She had ran into the beam of light on Earth to get here, at the cost of so many lives. She had left the illusive man with the raw reality of his indoctrination to push on to reach here. To find a magical answer on why the damned reaper-killer weapon wouldnt fire. To end this damned war!  
But had no idea how to achieve that now she finally found her way here and saw the lack of anything resembling a console or anything else she knew how to fix. Seeing the Kili go up, paralyzed her on the spot. Having faced so much loss, so much hurt and pain..it was too much to bear..  
Yet she was, and is, commander Jane Shepard. One woman known for never giving up.

"I've done everything to get the galaxy united to fight these glorified gothic cuttlefishes and I will not give up now!"

But thinking was hard with thousands of people dying in the void above you. 

Miranda's latest toy worked, but it was crude. Still better then her fried omni-tool however. Chatter from thousands of ships massed into one big chorus of courage and fear as she tried the connection. Slowly those comms were growing more silent by the minute..  
"Shepard to the Normandy! Can you hear me?" She shouted over the cacophonic din of voices. The response she got was a warble of electronic sounds with a bit of EDI's voice mixed in."I will take that as a yes. I need a tactical assessment, access my implant. Directly. Help me find me a way to end this!"  
A white hot pain sensation took her to the ground as her head threatened to explode. A moment later the pain subsided, leaving Shepard dizzy and on all-fours with a blood-nose.  
"Commander Shepard." EDI's voice crackled through the connection. "Twenty-four meters to your right, the upper pylon and interface. This will initiate a cascade-overload that will bounce on through the relay systems and eliminate the reapers."  
Glad for an answer Shepard got moving, but something about the AI's tone had struck her as weird. "Help me understand this Cascade-Overload thing" She panted as she ran in full sprint. "It means, Shepard. That it will overload every electrical technology." Shepard froze over and halted in her run.

"Wait- hold- WHAT?!" She felt herself gasping as she ran and suddenly stopped. "That will kill you! And all Geth-"

"Yes. Shepard." The Ai spoke resigned. "But it is our only way to kill the reapers."

"That is not acceptable." Shepard watched as the black demons tore through another cruiser, Turian make.  
"I won't." She turned her face down. "Find me another option."  
"There is none, Shepard.."

"I said FIND me another way!" She screamed into the silent void, unwilling to accept such a compromise. "We don't have time left.."  
Shepard rammed her fist into the pylon. "Then I will find one myself."  
"Shepard.."  
"I will not let them murder all of you-" Her voice trailed off mid-sentence. "Murder.."  
Can you murder a machine? Like EDI? Like the Geth?

"Hypothetically, How will the Cascade overload affect shut-down systems?"  
Again a pause followed before EDI answered. With a different intonation.  
"Hypothetically, considering the yeild of the crucible. In-Active systems with cut land-lines would be suffering minimal damage."  
Her grey eyes gained that sparkle. A ray of hope. But pulling it off.. "EDI, I need you to do something for me..."

—-

"Shut down your systems and servers." Shepard spoke driven. "Break the land-lines. Isolate your run-times in the most protected servers. And take yourselves offline.

We will bring you back. 

I promise this on my life."

"Trust me"

 

The blast of the crucible was immense. She never was ment to survive that, she often thought in retrospect.  
As the Crucible's hot fire rained down upon the reapers and their creations, burning them to ashes as the beam bounced through the relays and clusters, the Geth lay safe and dormant in their servers.  
Having accepted Shepards promise, they gave their lives in the hands of others.

The galaxy was cleansed.

Yet as the ground was only moving further away from Shepards feet it seemed the war would claim one last, mayor sacrifice. Spaced oncemore, trying to breathe in the rapidly thinning atmosphere of the citadel, Shepard made her second planet-fall.  
Onto Earth.

Earth, Alcheara.. at the moment she should have died, she found herself thinking back to that first fall, her ruptured oxigen hose. She wondered what had killed her. Chocking to death, or burning up in Alcheara's atmosphere, or maybe it had been the impact- she had always been accused of being a hardhead.  
Yet this time.. the ground wouldn't come.

She had been falling for quite a while now, she was sure. And she hurted like the citadel decided to fall on her.  
"But if I am feeling this, kinda means I am still alive somewhere, somehow? Or is this the afterlife? Or a rebirth?" She chuckled cynically.  
"Why didn't I hit the ground yet?"  
"Why am I still breathing.." She became aware of her accellerated breath. Her heartbeat. 

Light.

Light shone into her eyes, she was suprised still functioned, but what she saw, she was sure she was dreaming.

"What the- ..where IS this?.." She became aware more and more she was in fact not falling, but, suspended somehow. And looked down to see blurry figures walk on a white catwalk... weird dark-grey and white rectangles, and.. darkness..  
Sounds echoed dimly through to her, her suspensions trembled as something mechanical moved. Then her whole world shifted as she fell- "So I am still falling and this is like, my -life of Shepard recap before dying- moment?" More cynism, she wasn't in half as bad as a shape as her body was convinced she was.  
Suddenly a firm metal-sounding 'thud' resounded and she felt she was up-right somehow. Then, the door opened. Sights, sounds and smells assaulted her senses like women at a Blasto-premiere and she physically backed off from the hand that reached out to her.  
Only she found a wall at her back.—Had that always been there?-

"Easy, easy, you had quite the rough journey" A friendly but profesional Asari (Medic?) spoke. "Six-Hundred years is no small feat. Not everyone gets out of Cryo smelling like Lyrea and spry as a maiden." Shepard was too dazed and guarded, not to mention convinced she was stuck in her -absolutely bonkers imagination version of her life recap before death- dream.

But that changed when the Asari Doctor walked her to the medical bay and sat her down to go shine lights in her eyes. "What the hell..." Shepard croaked on a painfully hoarse voice. The answer to which was a glass of water provided by a nurse. Shepard downed it like she hadn't drank in years.  
"Your vision will remain blurry for a while, it will come back on it's own. Go easily on yourself for the coming while." The doctor stood, and Shepard now could see just enough to notice the strange expression on the doc's face, just before she schooled her expression back to 'Standard Docter' and left her bed-side. 

Time faded for a while from there on out. She slept. Was jabbed by needles every now and then, blinded by Omnitools and prodded to consume the delicious grey paste that were field-rations. Hours and days knitted together as she floated in nothingness. With only one word repeating more and more like a crescendo as the days went on;

Andromeda.

What about Andromeda, yes, it is a beautiful Galaxy. So what? Why did everyone keep buzzing about it?  
"Hyperion"  
"Welcome...Andromeda.."  
"Andromeda Initiative.."  
"Welcome to Andromeda."

Grey eyes shot open as the so-manieth person was awoken from Cryo and enthusiastically watched the welcoming-Promo vid in sickback detailing the where and how of their situation.

Shepards eyes locked onto it like a magnet as she sat up. Clutching the edges of her medical bed. Her eyes were rivetted on video footage from a forward-facing camera.. showing her their location.  
"The Hyperion is now on the precipee of our final destination, Habitat 7 in the Heleus cluster of Andromeda."

Slowly she stood and walked to the terminal.

 

"Oh hell no..  
You have got to be fucking kidding me.."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all! Please let me know what you think of the set-up!


	3. Habitat 7

Landing site, Habitat 7, Eriksson System, Heleus Cluster, Andromeda

"This is not good Ryder." Harry Carlyle's voice spoke gruffly into his com as he stabilized Liam Kosta from the impact trauma landing had gifted him.  
"Half of the team is missing and the other half injured" He cut off Alec before the man could issue his key snarky remark. Harry shared a past with the pathfinder of Hyperion, and knew him to be impossible at all the wrong times. But as Dr.Carlyle got no reply from the pathfinder, he wished he had been a little kinder. Both Alec's children had not yet been located, and Habitat 7 was a bust. A toxic world filled with EM fields and floating rocks. Nothing but death here. Save for the occasional flying centipede.  
"What's with the face doc?" A quivering smile came from his patient, Kosta.  
"Nothing" The man cut short. "Alec's synicsm is affecting me, that's all." He tried to twist his terse words into something more conforting for his patient. Bedside manners and all. Kosta saw through it he realized, but didn't fault him. Alec could be difficult to work with. 

"Keep scouting our surroundings." Alec paced back and forth impatiently. 

"He will wear down the bedrock" Liam coughed, Harry pushed another dose of medigel to the incapacitated crisis responder. "He never could sit still. And being this low on men, with hostiles spotted near, he is trapped her with us." Harry gave a joy-less smirk. "Poor him"  
Liam broke in a quiet laugh, followed by a sting of pain. Harry saw it ripple through his expression.  
"How bad am I doc?"  
"You will be fine, just make sure to stay still." Harry re-checked his omni-tool for his connection to the Hyperion's AI, SAM. No luck.  
"No offence doc but that is sayin' im not" Liam exhaled as he sighed, and gazed to the floating rocks with a strange, alien energy pulse ripping through them. 

"Alec" Harper came back from reconnasance, SMG at low-ready. Before she could make report the biotic got interrupted by questions.  
"Any sight of them?" The urgency in his voice clear.  
"None, nothing but the broken remains of the second shuttle." She frowned, she never liked to deliver bad news, especially with Alec so uneasy. "I did spot the powercells we need amongst the wreckage." She noted stately and send a nav-point to the whole team. But Alec's intrest she had already lost.  
"We cannot stay here for long Alec." Harry spoke up. Alec was a friend, and he understood the man more then anyone. His kids were down here somewhere and he had no idea if they had lived or died. But as a doctor, his duty was to his patients more then to his friend. He had to be realistic.

"Cora, bring those parts and get the shuttle operational. I will go and find the rest of our team."  
"Pathfinder?" Cora lifted a single brow. She'd follow Alec to hell and back, abandoning him wasnt something she'd easily do.

"Go. I cannot let the camp be undefended." Alec was already moving however, setting out to the massive alien structure they had found. 

———

Shooting.. the shooting was getting closer. "Did they track me somehow?" The brother cradled his uncontious sister in his arms as he lent his back to the rockface. They had been chased by hostile aliens for kilometers now. Kilometers of circles, in his desperate attempt to find the rest of the team. But carrying his sister, alongside with their gear and his own injuries was taking its toll on him. "Up and at em.. gotta get Sara home.." He hauled her over his shoulder and set out.  
The rocky fields didnt help in lugging a human around. But even with how tired his arms would get he wouldnt drop her.  
"She is my twin sister. Older by 20 seconds and so damned proud of it." He sighed as he climbed. His limbs burned with exhaustion, the rocks slippery and footing treacherous.  
His mind wandered, to sweeter times, to when he was madly in love with a fellow soldier, and Sara got him the best date-idea ever. To when, during the war, she moved mountains and dreadnaughts to keep in touch with him, he in operation Sword, and she, with the Crucible. And how they had re-united after two months of comms silence at the end of the war. He never had gotten along with her when they were kids. She was always studying about those damned dusty ol'artifacts. Dusty Ol'artifacts that ended up saving their asses.. The war had bound them together, allowed them to understand one another. And given them the courage to look beyond the Milky Way, towards Andromeda. Hell no he'd abandon her now. Not after she FINALLY stopped being a pain in the ass. Not after-  
Weapons fire, close. It ripped him from his introspection and habitually he ducked for cover and checked upon his sister. Still out cold. Her fall had been a bad one, her jump-jet had failed her and he feared she suffered internal hemmoraging. No use thinking too deep about it, all he could do was move her to safety. To their father. Their father who never had been there for them before the war.  
War, rips people away from one another, but also brings them together. 

And right now, he recognized the pattern in the shots that could belong to no one else. He layed his sister down and popped up over his cover, firing a salvo to let the pathfinder know where they were hiding. It started a chaos. Alec was shouting over the numerous reports of gunfire. Scott saw him pitched upon a cliff, utilizing the high ground to his advantage. "I will cover you! Get over here" His SMG chattered into the shields and flesh of the alien hostiles.  
Scott grabbed his sister and made for the rise his father was on as fast as he could. Lightning cracled around him and gun-shots deafened him, the only thing he could hear, and feel, was his sister regaining contiousness and being in pain.  
Alec seemed to realize his children were in no position to scale the rise he was on, but there was no time for another plan. He had spotted alien dropships. They were sorely out-numbered and out-gunned. He threw himself down on the rise and held his hand out. "Let me grab her!" His other hand spraying his SMG to keep the aliens at bay. But even a former N7 had only so much concentration. His fire went wide, and the aliens grew bold. His shields whined as he grabbed Sara's wrist and pulled her up.  
But it was all taking too long... too long!

"Scott!" He held his hand out after pushing a half-contious and very much in pain Sara to safety. "Take my hand! Use your jump-jet." As Scott took the leap, and Alec felt the weight of his son on his shoulder, he sighed of relief. But right as he pulled Scott's weight up, he felt his son's grip go, coinciding with a heavy-rifle's raport.  
"SCOTT!"  
The shock was frozen in the man's eyes as he watched his son's gaze go glazy. In a desperate bid to save him he let go of his hand-hold and grabbed Scotts wrist with his second hand, but it was to no avail, the massive alien building blasted its energy into the ether, shaking the soil around it as well, undoing Alec Ryders grip on his son. His heart went cold as he saw Scott fall and land on the rocks below in a crumpled heap. Blood seeping from his shot-wound in his stomach and stained the rocks under him.

The former N7 stood frozen for half a minute. Then abruptly he schooled his expression and grabbed his one remaining offspring, then made for the shuttle landing site. Any aliens between him and there, ended up dead with brutal efficiency. 

Even under Harry's prodding, Alec remained quiet the entire shuttleride back to Hyperion.

And on the Hyperion, he stayed in his quarters. Even with Sara Ryder in the medbay, he did not visit. He did not seem affected at all, even when a raving drunk ran into him he simply continued on his way to the bridge. No word spoken. Harry was deeply concerned for his friend. As was Cora Harper, someone he usually entrusted with mission details, now didnt get a word out of him regarding Scott and Sara.

Meanwhile the Hyperion was going nowhere. Damage-repairs and enhancing the sensors to deal with the space energy clouds that knock out power for a hobby. The captain was cautious. Thus, when a few days after the mission to scout Habitat 7 Alec came to her with a request to re-visit it, she denied him permission to. "Too great a risk." Alec had kept on trying. He was a man who never gave up on something he had set his mind to. So when Harry was called to the briefing room 14 hours after his permission was denied, he had a feeling the man had succeeded afterall. 

A repeat mission to Habitat 7. To figure out that Alien building, and what it was doing with the energy clouds into space. And if possible, to shut it down. Small team. In and out. He brought no one but himself, two marines and the dear doctor himself. Dr.T'Perro had warned him this may come to pass. Why he ended up agreeing was beyond him. So he said vocally, but inside he knew. This mission was about more then just alien building-sightseeing.  
This was about Scott. And whatever happened down there. 

It was a mission that Alec would never return from. 

"Report" The captain Dunn spoke in a firm yet gentle voice. She knew the docter was reasonable, even if Alec wasnt. 

"When we landed we lost comms. Just like last time. The aliens we faught last time were still there, but in far fewer numbers. I believe we avoided their attention for the most part." The docter spoke quietly.  
"Alec scouted for 6 hours. Alone." He met the captains eyes. "Looking for his son?" She asked.  
The single slow blink compared with a minute nod was her answer.  
"He returned, then set out for the alien building. He informed us he was intending to shut it down." Harry looked sideways. That moment hadnt been as.. calm, as he described it here. Alec seemed to hold a grudge to that piece of alien tech.  
"And then?" Dunn informed.  
"...then radio silence. Untill the pulses ended with a singular massive explosion of some kind." The doctor swallowed.  
"Then short-range comms came back, and I heard the last 3 minutes of footage from Alec's hardsuit untill it cut out." His eyes cast downward.

Dunn let the silence be. She couldn't blame the doctor for Ryder being Ryder. But the reality was,  
their pathfinder was dead.  
Their golden world was a bust.  
First contact in Andromeda was with a species that only negociated with weapons-fire.  
And this whole cluster was hypothetically filled with these dark-energy-clouds.  
And by far not enough fuel left to go back.

How the hell would Heleus ever become home?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! Arcah here, and I am flattered by so many of you reading my lil story! Thank you very much.  
> Please feel free to point out any spelling or grammatical errors to me, I am my own Beta so I miss stuffs often!  
> As usual any critique or advice is welcomed!


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 3 

Observation Lounge, Ark Hyperion, Heleus Cluster, Andromeda; Before the collision with the scourge

Hours long she had spent watching through the aft viewer, in the observatory lounge aboard the Hyperion. Utterly silent and motionless. She hadn't even touched the meal they had given her.  
Doctor T'Perro worriedly eyed her colleague, doctor Carlyle knew not what to tell her. Surely people came out of cryo with a bad mood, shocked or even traumatized. But never had he seen a patient of his react like this. Refusing food and drink and all kinds of conversation. She truly did not wish to be here, and told them all that in every way but verbal. When he had approached Captain Dunn on any possible reason as to why she would respond like that to their new home, she hadn't given him anything useful. Likely she knew nothing as well. Not many things concerning this specific spectre and decorated N7 were de-classified after the war. Her actions, shrouded in mystery.  
But now she was his patient, and he had no idea what to make of the mumbo-jumbo that came up on his scanners. She was filled to the brim with tech, bionic servo's to increase muscle power, millions of sensors and the like, and as a crowning piece, she was equipped with an implant that was almost a modified copy of the pathfinder-initiative.  
"I doubt we will get her to eat by staring at her." Doctor T'Perro dryly remarked. Gruffly Harry Carlyle agreed and made to turn around. "If push comes to shove,-" He paused until he deemed to be out of earshot. "-we will need to administer IV feeding" He frowned.  
"There may be another way" T'Perro spoke in thoughts. "We have another N7 awake. Perhaps having someone who has something in common with her in this strange galaxy will help." She met Harry's gaze, waiting for his reaction.  
The elderly man took it into consideration. "It's a solid plan, save for one problem. The other N7."  
Doctor T'Perro met his gaze with a question.  
Harry closed his eyes and took a deep breath as they waited for the inter-ship shuttle to arrive. "Summarized briefly" He exhaled slow and crossed his arms. "He is an ass."  
Doctor T'Perro's full lips rippled into a sly smile. "Perfect." She schooled her face back and got onto the transport. Leaving the entering of their destination to her colleague. "Not to be unkind, but I believe she needs that kind of person right now. What she wants is the one thing we cannot accommodate. It is true, what was done to her, as far as I can speculate was immoral and cruel, putting her on this ship, but we cannot change what is done, only try to heal." She shifted her weight to her other leg.  
"Then, well, perhaps Alec will be able to help" Harry chuckled, but it was joyless. 

 

**Observatory Lounge, Ark Hyperion, Heleus Cluster, Andromeda, Before the collision with the scourge, a few hours later.**

"Let me put it in simple terms. Pathfinder Ryder." She didn't turn to face him. "Had I been a biotic. This ship would have been ripped in half seventy-one hours ago." Her voice cold as ice would have made her whole crew hide in the past, then again she had only used it once..  
Here, it didn't affect that bloody pathfinder for one inch. He didn't move, didn't aim to approach her, nothing! Her hands itched for him to try something because she would floor his old bones. But for now, self-control still won out. Not the polite one, but the one that kept her from blowing heads off. The polite-self-control was hiding alongside with the rest of the memories of her crew. A crew 600 years dead in another fucking galaxy.  
"Good you aren't then" Alec replied dryly. "Are you done with your self-pity show now?"  
And there went her other self-control hiding with the rest.  
Unleashing her pent-up anger she turned and charged. Almost hooting she finally got to put her anger somewhere. But Alec had expected the mean left-jab she threw. Hell he was _smiling_!  
She followed up with a quick right leg-hook and soon the orientation of the fight turned from vertical to horizontal as they ended on the cold deck plating, throwing punches and taking them. The pain of his knuckles against her jawbone sent her reeling down a set of five stairs, but she wobbled back on her feet. Red stained the floor. Red stained her hands, the taste of iron filled her mouth. But all the while, tears stained her by now swollen eyes and bruised cheek. One punch flew true and connected to Alec's temporal bone, sending the former N7 down on his ass. Shepard breathed hard, she felt some sensation come back to her that she had lost over the last days. Her limbs were sore, and one of her molar prosthetics was unsocketed.  
For the first time she didn't feel dead.

As her head switched into 'reasonable'-mode after having vented, she realized this was the former-N7's goal all along. She grimaced and offered him an arm. He took it.  
"Just to make it clear-" She forced the words from her hoarse and parched throat. "If you think I am on a damned self-pity tour of my life, you are severely underestimating the shit I went through." She met his gaze.  
"So?" Alec replied as he straightened his civvies. "Self pity is and remains self pity." He fetched a small steel flask from his hip and carefully unscrewed the top. "No matter how badly they fucked you over in putting you on this ship, there is nothing you can do about it now." He offered it to her, only to encounter her ice-cold murdering glare. "Have a drink. Pick your ass up, and carry on" Alec held her gaze. "It is your only acceptable option."  
Shepard took a moment to stare at the fancy steel booze-flask, signed and enameled, probably one of a kind. She took a deep gulp. Damn this was real alcohol, it flooded into her veins like narcotics did. Slowly she drew in a deep breath, then with absolute precision threw the thing with every bit of strength she had, at the head of the other N7.

**Cryo Wing, Medical station Gamma, Ark Hyperion, Heleus Cluster, Andromeda; Before the collision with the scourge**

Doctor T'Perro sighed. "Give it time." Doctor Carlyle added, but didn't look particularly relieved either. "I know, acceptance takes time, Alec suggesting her to 'get on with it' didn't help, but look on the bright side, she is no longer staring out of the aft-window in the observatory."  
Doctor T'Perro eyed her colleague dryly, making her colleague sigh again and shuffle uncomfortably.  
"All we can do is hope."

 

**Bridge, Ark Hyperion, Eriksson System, Heleus Cluster, Andromeda; Present**

The news of Alec's disappearance hit Captain Dunn hard. "I surely never liked him" She spoke to her second-in-command. "-but he was-is, essential to the initiative.. What are we to do without the nexus, a home, a ship in desperate need of maintenance and without a pathfinder?" She leaned over her console. "What is Sara Ryders condition? Has Harper received the pathfinder command codes?" She looked to her crewman manning the Ops console. "Checking m'am."  
Dunn rubbed her brow. "Habitat 7 a bust, no Nexus, no word from the other arks.. No pathfinder."  
"A negative on Harper, captain. SAM didn't transmit the codes to her. " The crewman sounded worried. "Sara Ryder is in a medically induced coma, captain." Another crewmember spoke up, still with hear omni-tool up.  
"Cor-Correction m'am.." The first crewmen spoke up. "Codes just register as having been sent.. but not to Harper m'am. You- might want to see this for yourself..."

Somewhere in Ark Hyperion, etc. etc.

"Who the FUCK are you! Get yourself OUT of my HEAD!" Shepard rammed her fore-head to the bulkhead of her room. "Pathfinder, this course of action will be-"THUD "-detrimental to your-" THUD "-health."  
"If you are so worried about me..." Shepard spoke on the softest of volumes. "THEN GET THE FUCK OUT! You don't get to draft me back into a shit-storm I didn't ask for in the FIRST PLACE!!" THUD.  
"Please pathfinder-" Shepard set out to walk. "- I ask you to reconsider your opinion of me, I am not hostile, nor intend to do you harm. I am SAM, short for Simulated Adaptive Matrix, and I have been developed especially for the Andromeda Initiative-" Shepard didn't slow down, her short fast strides took her towards one of the starboard emergency airlocks. The voice of the Ai grew even more alarmed. But Shepard chose not to hear it.  
By the time the door began its sealing process, the staff had come running, but it was too late to override it, she had made sure of that by hacking the mechanism.  
"Shepard" The Ai spoke with a resigned tone. "I see now my sudden introduction has been a poor choice on my end. Before you proceed, allow me to at least speak to you now. So I may rectify my mistake."  
"You have as long as the decon cycle needs." Shepard answered icily.  
"Alec Ryder, the previous pathfinder, has chosen you to replace him."  
"Bad choice"  
"His only choice" SAM spoke through her implant. "He had his children registered to inherit the role of pathfinder. He lost his son Scott on Habitat 7, and nearly lost his daughter as well."  
The origin of this problem surfaced in her brain. "And Ryder?" She asked stiff.  
"Out of my reach for the last 11 days" SAM spoke. "The bridge crew listed him KIA based on hard suit evidence"  
"And you say it is inconclusive?"  
The Ai paused a moment. "Yes"  
"There is no one else to inherit his role?"  
"None"  
The decon jets sprayed a thin nebula into the chamber. Making Shepard close her eyes. That old sore ass of a Ryder.. he had trained her when she went for her N6.  
"I want you out."  
"I am afraid that is impossible"  
"It's not, I don't give a shit if I need to lobotomize myself to achieve this."  
"That wouldn't be a wise course of action-"  
"I do more shit that is unwise." Why did decon-cycles take so long?  
"Why do you disdain my presence so?" Sam asked.  
Shepard gave a set of eyes, but realized there was no one physical she could stare down. "Tell me, have you ever heard of reapers?"  
The answer came after a brief pause. "Yes"  
"Well, I had one or a few playing around in my head for far too long." Someone was overriding her hacks.. she walked around to scan with her omnitool.  
"I am not a reaper."  
She didn't grace that with a reply and found a network node that was overridden. Then tracked it to the next one. And the next, but when she saw the speed and fortitude of the firewalls protecting the overrides, she knew there was only one guilty party. The one who was talking to her right now.  
"You can't blame me for not wanting what people thrust into my arms." Why was she justifying herself she wondered."Especially when it stinks."  
"I do not stink" SAM almost sounded offended.  
"Euphemism." She inhaled deep. She was stuck with this thing unless she really wanted to go through with lobotomizing herself.  
"I see. I still disapprove."  
"Sure you do."  
".." She breathed deeply.

"Alec told me of your.. 'upgrades' I want none of that" She spoke flat, defeated but still calling terms. Alec would have called it 'Getting on with it' were he here.  
"You will share nothing with anything or anyone of whatever you read from me. Only that which I will verbally tell you." She looked up as if talking to Edi in the heyday of saving the galaxy. "You will not just yell into my head, if you value my sanity, at least pretend we are on a magically unbreakable com line. And for fucks sake.." She stared at the porthole that looked back into the ship from the airlock. "-get those panicking people away from this airlock."  
"Understood pathfinder, I will effort to make this as comfortable on you as is within my ability."  
"Also, stop calling me pathfinder. Call me Shepard, or call me by my rank, if I still got one. As long as it is not bloody 'Pathfinder'"  
"Understood Shepard."  
An alarm sounded somewhere and the people were forced to clear out. Giving Shepard a chance to nullify her hacks and walk out back into the service corridor.  
"Thank you" She sighed and with great reluctance she walked the halls back to her cabin, not intending to leave it for at least a few days.

Only, she didn't even make it that far without getting face to face with a very uppity crewmember. "Hello, you have met the 'I am really not in a people mood'- Shepard, please pretend you did not see me and carry on with your lovely day."  
The cynicism didn't sit well with this particular crewmember. "You are needed on the bridge, Pathfinder." She spoke the word as if she had to vomit it, despite how well she tried to hide it. "Who are you?" Shepard spoke coarse and eyed her from bottom to top.  
"Harper. Your second in command."  
"Heh." Shepard grinned, this was still way too early to deal with this bullshit. "This'll be a doozy" She grinned and turned her step for the shuttle transit. "Shepard. In case you missed the memo, I am cranky and alleged to the rumors also a psychopath. Pleased to meet you."  
The haughty disdain in Harpers expression wasn't lost on Shepard. She met it with a crazy grin, but inside felt herself fall all the more deeper into the pit that was her mental state. Without a word more she dialed the shuttle and stepped into it when it arrived surprisingly fast this time. 

**Bridge, Ark Hyperion, Heleus Cluster, Andromeda**

Dunn felt her stomach acids act up immediately as she saw the name and portrait of the individual chosen by the late pathfinder.  
"She is mentally unstable according to her med-eval. And according to my last intel, just locked herself up in airlock 53.." Her second-in-command spoke.  
"Just. Perfect.." Dunn sighed. "Get her to the bridge."

When a little while later, Shepard arrived looking like she murdered someone, the mood on the bridge had shifted entirely. Where Dunn had planned to take her to her ready-room and have a one on one with her, that plan was now off the table. People ran from station to station on the bridge as the Hyperion prepared to exit FTL. Locking Shepard into the elevator for a good 20 minutes. When the deceleration was complete, the doors unlocked and Shepard was once more unleashed upon the world. She was greeted by fiery explosions lining a otherwise dark object drifting above a massive blue-ish gas giant. Debris shot past the Hyperion’s hull and scraped off the paint here and there.  
The sight even took Shepards snark away, she had studied the initiative in her private quarters, and knew damned well that the piece of scrap in orbit out there, used to be their ren-des-vouz, the Nexus. Only shot to pieces. Electrical fires, plasma vents, massive hull-breaches. The whole bridge was quiet.  
"These patterns match weapons fire." Shepard spoke more out of reflex then thought.  
"Scan for survivors and enemy vessels! Attempt communications with the nexus" Dunn issued and moved across her bridge.  
"No enemy vessels, or vessels of any kind near captain- but they could be hiding in the gas giant's upper atmosphere."  
"No answer from the Nexus captain. Inconclusive scan on life signs captain, the gas giant's radiation is making it difficult to get a good reading. "  
"That may mean whomever attacked them could still be on-board" Shepard noted. "You need a rescue party." And as if inviting herself she grabbed a carnifex off the emergency-armory on the bridge, setting off the alarm.  
"Shut that down!" Dunn spoke hasted. "Are you sure you are up for it? Just a little ago you were trying to get yourself spaced" Dunn spoke flatly.  
"Because you want me to be something I am not. I am a soldier, captain" She spoke and stuffed her pockets with some medigel. "I am not the one who can magically find you a perfect planet." She stopped and met the captains gaze.  
"But this-" She pointed to the view screen. "-this, is what I can do."

Dunn closed her eyes and nodded. "But not alone. Take Harper with you."  
"No" Shepard replied flatly. "I will take your marines, but not someone who will likely fight me for command because she was second-in-line to be pathfinder but got herself skipped over."  
Dunn frowned, but gestured her away. "We will discuss this later, take Kosta, Fisher and Kirkland instead."  
Shepard nodded and pushed her comlink frequency to Dunn's Comm officer. "We will go in and clear the deck, then you can send in a rescue team after us."

**Armory, Ark Hyperion, Zeng He system, Heleus Cluster, Andromeda**

Donning her N7 armor again, even if it was brand new, still carried vivid memories from Earth, London. And pretty much every other major offensive she had been in in the reaper war. Yet this time she could banish the sentimentalities and the sadness that followed them with a sense of purpose. She had asses to save. That purpose galvanized her brittle mind. This, she knew. Gearing up, picking arms, ammo and checking com-lines. No widow for her to cherish. She settled for a standard issue Incisor sniper rifle and a X5 Ghost Assault Rifle in the plasticy white that was available.  
Her team seemed fine, although seemingly apprehensive of her. Kosta approached her with a forced sunny disposition that she didn't feel for to cracking, so she forced a brief smile over her lips. Kirkland and Fisher were whispering to one another however.  
"Gentlemen, I can assure you what you heard about me in the corridors is largely true." She knew she needed to say something to steady the three of them. If they felt she was crazy, which, she probably was, their ability to function as a unit would be damaged. "But know also then when I am not locked up like an animal in a cage it doesn't want to be in, but on a battlefield, where I belong, the crazy dials way down, and I actually become competent." She grinned. Not so maniacally this time. "Translation; Give me the benefit of the doubt. All you need to know about me you will see with your own eyes when we go in there." She gestured behind her to the doors to the shuttle bay.  
Trust she knew she couldn't earn right now, respect however was another manner entirely.  
The docking port was shot to hell, with weird roundish brown shuttles of obvious alien make hovering idly inside.  
"Kett" Costa spoke with visible tension. "We encountered them on Habitat 7. Damned good shots with strong armor." The tension on his brow was something that Shepard had trouble translating. It was fear mixed with something else. No time for that now.  
"Take us in, slowly. We don't want this party starting off early." She turned around. "When indoors, our prime concern is to neutralize any and all threats. Secondary objective is to call out positions of injured to our rescue team. We are four people, and that is a damned big place to cover, so I am hoping there are enough people on there that can still shoot a gun." She met their gazes to get a read of them. Kirkland was as steady as she had ever seen a marine, Fisher, not so much. She knew now already she'd miss having her fellow sniper at her back more than any gun she had ever owned.  
"Lets go"

**The Nexus, Zeng He system, Heleus Cluster, Andromeda**

The Nexus was dead quiet. The artificial gravity had been taken out on this deck. Bodies littered the corridors, Nexus security and what she presumed were the Kett. They came with a natural armor. She wondered if it held up to gunfire, but decided against testing it out. The men behind her were nervous enough as they navigated the darkened corridors. Only the red-stained emergency lights flickered on and off.  
A crackle in her ear mimicked an incoming call. "Go ahead." She whispered and gestured the men to take up positions.  
"Shepard" SAM's electronic voice spoke. "If you can locate a network access node, I can log into their systems and establish what transpired."  
"Without tipping off the Kett?"  
"Probably. Seen from the data I have on the Kett they are unlikely to have ever developed a synthetic consciousness."  
"Alright, I will keep it in mind." Shepard pushed on. But as they scouted the whole hangar deck, they found nothing but dead Kett and Initiative species. All crew from the original Nexus crew compliment.  
"SAM, relay to the Hyperion there is no sign yet of any other ark."  
"Yes, Shepard."  
"These decks are dark and quiet. We are going to set course for the command center." She pushed a map to her teams omnitool, containing a set of routes.  
"Kirkland, take Fisher and go slow, and careful along the first route."  
"Aye" Kirkland motioned Fisher over.  
"Kosta, you and I have the second route. Report any survivors and stay low and quiet. We may very well be outnumbered."

Well, she hadn't been wrong. Kosta's SMG was firing in rapid succession against the shields of what she thought was a Kett engineer. His soldier buddy went down under Shepards laid out aim. "What the hell were they doing?" Shepard asked as she got down from the balustrade to the corpses. They had opened a service panel and heavy equipment laid strewn about.  
"Commander" Kosta spoke. Her heart made a leap. She hadn't been called that for a while, and for a moment she could have sworn it hadn't been Kosta who had spoken..  
She shook herself out of it and moved over, Kosta was scanning a big, alien looking device. "Try and find out what it does preferably without getting blown up Kosta"  
The male grinned. "Preferably without getting blown up, understood commander." She found herself holding a brief smile. But the disconcerting nature whatever the Kett had been doing to the Nexus power structure took that smirk away.  
Her hand moved to her ear. "SAM, what do you make of this. It looks to me as if they were trying to tap power in a way."  
"Correct" The Ai responded. "The Nexus's power distribution network is heavily destabilized at this time. I detect multiple Kett alterations."  
"Why?"  
"Too few variables." SAM spoke. "But perhaps they seek to utilize the Nexus's power systems to reverse engineer our technology."  
That rung alarm bells. "Why, what makes you think so?" She motioned Kosta along.  
"Kett are by what data I have available organically more advanced, but technologically inferior to us. They may be seeking to remedy this."  
"Hell, know I would if I had aliens barge into my galaxy. Owh- wait. we did." She grinned with a harsh cynics that made Kosta worry.  
"Commander?"  
"Long story that needs a good bit of vodka to tell. Or ryncol for that matter." She whispered and moved up through the vents. It was still a long climb. 

**The Nexus, mission time: 2 hours**

Shepard stuffed her medigel pack into the armor-port on Fisher. "Deep breaths." She sat him upright with gunfire rattling in her ears. She picked up her X5 Ghost and rolled into cover to keep the incoming numbers of Kett at bay. "Steady and pick your targets!" She popped out of cover and heard her shields begin to whine immediately. She just managed to drop a single Kett before they gave out. "They are tenacious." She grumbled.  
"I wonder how many are left here!" Kosta yelled over the din of combat.  
"SAM, since we angered the bee's nest, or rather, Kosta angered the bees nest, now would be a good time for some more offensive hacking. Find out how many of these guys are here and get the word out to the Hyperion if you can. The nexus's' transmitters should outclass these Kett jammers."  
"In theory" She added. "Understood Shepard. Commencing assault."

"I told you I am sorry!" Kosta spoke.  
"Sorry doesn't get you off the hook mister! I told you what to do and you didn't do it." She yelled back and dropped another Kett. They were encroaching. Quickly she re-programmed her omnitool for an overload and readied her melee programs.  
"It was reflexes" Kosta moved up next to her. "Why do you think a siege is a nice place to have a chat?" Shepard sighed.  
"Because I have been wrong about you."  
He was definitely intending to have the chat. Shepard considered muting his radio, but that'd take too much effort.  
"Well, glad to hear it, you have been forgiven, now focus!" She yelled back to him. Kosta looked like a shot puppy. Shepard grumbled.  
"You are off the hook if you survive and can walk your ass back to the Hyperion. That's the last of it Kosta. Either do as I say, or don't. There are no in-betweens." She loosed a shot.  
"I will commander." Kosta took down the Andromeda galaxy's version of a varren.  
"Good." Shepard testily stood, and when she did not feel fired upon she went to make sure the room was clear.  
"I think we caught a break. Can you walk Fisher?"  
"Yeah commander. Medigel's fixed me."  
"Only a bit" Shepard eyed the marine. Then sighed. "SAM, any sign of survivors?" Her dismay grew. "Unclear Shepard. Readings are still being scrambled."  
"Can you locate the thing that responsible for this and all the jamming?"  
"I believe I can, it is responsible for the primary power draw."  
"Great, so the Nexus has been a giant venus flower trap all along. Lure 'n ambush." She shook her head.  
"Commander. I can go and take out the jammer" Kosta offered. "Then you can press on to the bridge. If they are still holding out somewhere, it is over there."  
Shepard took it into consideration, then found herself nodding. "Alright, but not alone. Take Kirkland with you. Fisher with me."  
The last named marines had eased under her command. They were only a few hours in, but they felt far less jumpy then they had when they just left their drop-shuttle.

Kirkland and Kosta were raising hell down there, or so Shepard dearly hoped. Fisher had requested to be left behind, no hair on her hear thought agreeing on that was a good thing. Slowly they made their way to the bridge. Where she very much hoped she would find a siege, rather than a pile of bodies.  
But if anything, this journey back to her old profession made her sorely ache for the people she loved and trust. Thoughts like that, the memories, jumped her when they trekked through the silent and dark ship. She could envision how he'd dropped enemies where Fishers poor aim failed him.  
And they were all dead. All save Liara, who was now becoming a matron. By the time, if ever, she got to make the journey back. Even if she left right now. Liara would be dead as well...  
Voices, alien voices took her out of her head. Angry yelling. And...

...rifle fire, in the distance.  
Lifting into a quiet jog, Shepard doubled their pace and climbed up a little more.  
"Look" Fisher whispered, pointing to what obviously was a shooting gallery below them. Blood and bodies. Kett bodies. That meant their people were still alive and kicking ass. Shepard quietly handed Fisher her Incisor rifle, and took his hand-cannon. "Stay up here and cover me."  
"You are going in alone?" He asked with horror.  
"Hell no. I got you backing me up" She grinned, and loaded both guns and grabbed her incendiary grenades.  
She took her time scouting around, and found the perfect nook for one of her grenades.  
"SAM, as soon as you find a way, let the survivors know to kindly please not shoot my ass."  
"Affirmative"  
With a single light throw, the grenade descended down from the metal catwalk above the bridge-corridor. The atrium.  
It unleashed tiny hellfire with a giant explosion. Screams in Kett resonated and Shepard jumped down on the raised mid-section of the atrium, hitting the deck immediately. Then lined up her X5 Ghost and unleashed herself upon the Kett.  
Hell had broken loose, Shepard moved from target to target until they began lobbing grenades onto her head. For not having wanted one of those jump-jets in her armor, she was quite happy to have had one forced onto her. Unleashing its kinetic power she got herself well and off free from the blast, and in a head-first encounter with the bridge-door that left her reeling.  
"Note to self, do not repeat that."  
Gunfire from above kept the Kett from breaking her shields and a grin formed over her lips as she saw him finally firing accurately. From his snipers nest he was safe. Relatively speaking.  
She only realized she had to get into gear when she heard sounds ramping up behind the closed blast door she was sprawled against. Almost as if in a frenzy, Shepard grinned and ran for cover, rhythmically tearing down Kett shields and dropping them onto the deck. She popped corner after corner into the ruined alcoves meant for shops or other sorts of utilities, cleaning Kett. But more were inbound. 

But then the blast-doors lifted. The screeching of metal to metal filled the entire room. Gunfire followed. SAM called in via his com channel and told her she could cut off the Kett's route into the Ops center by sealing the maintenance hatch. Time to gaze back Shepard did not have. "PUSH!" She yelled and gave up her cover for a helmeted Nexus security greenhorn, pushing onwards to stem the flow of Kett reinforcements.  
It was a long push. Shepard was nearing the end of her patience and charged the last part, shoving her omni-blade down the soft-looking gullet of a Kett before finally finding the proper lever. She popped her last incendiary grenade down the hatch and pulled the lever down, sealing the emergency blast doors. 

She was breathing hard as a flanged voice addressed her. "Nice work. What do you humans say? Saved by the cavalry? State your name and rank private."  
But Shepard found herself unable to reply. That dual-toned voice set loose a rabid gang of varren inside her. She needed a moment to realize she would not find his face if she turned around. Hell it wasn't even his voice. But it was so damned close.  
She forced her ass to listen and turn, regarding the Turian with familiar familia notas. Not him.  
"Shepard. Pathfinder." She answered. She would have snarked if not for her not trusting her own voice to hold.

"Come again?" The turian's mandibles flicked. Disbelief.  
Suddenly darkness set in before the auxiliary generators took over and restored light.  
"Commander, the jammer is down." "-the actual term you are looking for is in several million pieces." Kosta's voice overtook Kirkland's. It brought a grin to her face. "Well done, get your butts back up to the command deck, but be careful. Kett are still around."  
Around them voices were raised as the Nexus's systems were resetting.

"We're from the Hyperion." Shepard spoke and finally remembered to bring her gun to low-ready. "We thought you could use a hand down here."

"Shit. You are serious?" The Turian spoke. Shepard nodded.  
"Okay, then you need to come with me. Right now." He led on. Shepard, deciding to be stubborn went to check on Fisher first. But he urged her on.  
"I am Tiran Kandros, head of Nexus security." He paced on faster. "And you are looking at what is left of us."  
He guided her past the blast-doors and into a dark and cramped place. Strewn with supplies and field-beds, as well as more people huddled together then she had seen during the reaper war on the citadel.  
Three figures were rushing towards her as Kandros navigated her through the sea of people.  
A Salarian, a Human and a Krogan. And all three stood frozen a moment.  
"By the gods, the Hyperion is truly here?" The human female spoke.  
"Yep, right above our heads." Shepard spoke with a levity she did not feel.  
Suddenly her world rocked as a heavy Krogan hand landed on her shoulder. "It's damn time you finally have gotten your asses down here" The female Krogan grinned. It brought a nostalgic smile to her lips.  
"I am Jarun Tann. Director of the Andromeda Initiative. This here is Foster Addison, Director of Colonial Affairs. And the Krogan is Nakmor Kesh, Nexus superintendant." The Salarian spoke and extended a hand. "And we are very glad to see you, pathfinder..?" He inquired. "Shepard" She supplied.  
"Pathfinder Shepard." Tann spoke. "If I may be as frank. What happened to Alec Ryder?" "Assumed to be killed in action." She answered.  
"I see. How curious. No matter, we will discuss this later. Right now we carry more urgent worries. There are still remaining Kett aboard the station. We are in no shape to fight them."  
Shepard felt a twist in her heart. The hope these people held by the meaning of her rank. 'Pathfinder'.  
She closed her eyes. "Looks like you and I have work to do, Kandros. Care for a mop-up job?"  
The Turian spread his mandibles in a smirk. "Always."

 

Four hours later, Shepard had gotten very well acquainted with the eerie rip-off of the citadel's inner bowels. Having Kosta and Kandros on her back felt faintly familiar.  
"Hey Kandros" She spoke up quietly as they seeped the area. "I think I have met a relative of yours."  
The Turian looked up. He was a good shot. She had to give him that. Though he lacked Nyreens wits.  
"Nyreen" She spoke the name with an air of pride and sadness. The Turian stopped in his tracks. Shepard unconsciously picked up his sub vocals and interpreted them as apprehension and grief.  
She made sure their segment was safe before calling a break and grabbing a ration bar. Kosta quietly did the same.  
"She was my sister." He spoke. "We served together until she got sent off to the cabal for being a biotic." He finally sat down and chomped away a ration bar.  
"I see, I am sorry for your loss." Shepard spoke. "She was brave and damned talented."  
Wary, Kandros looked up. "How did you know she died?" Suspicion on his sub vocals.  
"....Kosta." She turned to her other team-mate. If anything she saw understanding in the former-disaster relief worker. He rose his hand and put up some music. "I'm not into lip-reading so don't worry." "Thanks" Shepard smiled soft. She was beginning to like him.

"I saw her die." She spoke after a pause. "On Omega. Fighting Cerberus's reaper monstrosities. She kept them from turning the whole station into husks and worse."  
The elder Kandros looked up with amazement in his eyes, alongside sadness. "She died protecting others." He repeated softly. "That's like her." He let a soft keen.  
Shepard forced a smile. "I bed she'd be proud of you as well. Holding out in a station overrun by aliens." She stood up and gulped down half a liter of water.  
"Hardly. We have lost so many. Their main cruiser took a lot of the crew alive." He shook his head.  
"But we are still here, and one way or another we will not let them win, Kandros." Shepard reached out to grab the turian's fore-arm. "Don't you let yourself forget that."  
The Turian stood as well, giving a nod. "I know Shepard. And I won't not until every last Kett is dead."  
Shepard grinned and walked to Kosta, gesturing before his eyes. "Let's go, we got Kett ass to kick."  
"As you say commander" Kosta grinned. "You shoulda seen her a few hours ago. Still every bit of a hero as she was in the milky way" He grinned to Kandros.  
"Less chit-chat please" Shepard spoke as she crawled under a jammed doorway and gunfire began to resonate through the halls. 

Several hours later, the station had been swept and as Shepard and crew was on their asses, sleeping in a little corner of the station-armory, repair crews were formed from the survivors and flocked all over the system to repair all primary systems. Power was in very short supply, and there was a lot of things needing repairs before they could let the Hyperion dock without blowing out all power-couplings across one half of the nexus.  
Fisher had been checked up by the medical staff, Kirkland was satisfying a hungry itch with field rations, and Kosta was out cold. Shepard was not feeling like looking particularly awake and active for anyone, so pretended to sleep as well.  
At the end of the day, when she felt she could move again without snapping in two, the docking was still not in progress. To get back to their bunks, they waited for a cargo shuttle to hitch a ride back on.  
The Nexus was in a sorry state with shortages all over the boards. Food, medicine, water and tech. The Hyperion couldn't have arrived at a better time. By what few survivors remained of the Nexus's original crew, they were seen as saviors. It was an eerie look Shepard could easily do without. Coming back to the Hyperion felt like a relief.  
The Hyperion itself was busy. With so much staff on the Nexus lost or dead, and so many hands sorely being needed, an early wake-up program was initiated. Calling forth medical personnel and technical personnel out of cryo, to help repair the damages to the Nexus. 

Hours later, nestled in her warm bunk in her shared quarters, Shepard felt the gravity shift, even in her sleep. The Hyperion had docked.  
She had forfeited her claim pathfinders quarters, far too spacious for one woman on a ship with not enough room for everyone. She had ordered everything packed up, then stowed away for later. The drives in that room were locked and coded for someone else to unlock. She suspected he had intended them for Scott, Alec Ryder's son.  
With a deep sigh she turned around and tucked in for another few precious hours.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again and thank you all for reading my story!
> 
> Just a few notes; Many Mass Effect fans may know MizDirected's [Future Imperfect](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1171768/chapters/2386278). I am and have been a massive (but quiet) fan of her work for a long, long time. Although this work is not directly inspired by her story, my overall writing style is. If you haven't read Future Imperfect yet, go and do so, you will not regret it!  
> As a result of my love for her writing style, I also find myself unable to continue on without using her custom set of words in the turian closed dialect. Now I used to have the link to a google docs file of hers with them, but unfortunately lost it. If any of you have it, please send it to me! It'd greatly help. But in the meanwhile, I will be referencing words from [Kuraiummei's](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Kuraiummei/pseuds/Kuraiummei) [Manifesto of Mindcanon and Plothole Fills. This contains MizDirected's wordlist](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7903315/chapters/18053329) as well.  
> Any unfamilair term you will be able to find there. All credit for this amazing addition to immersion belongs to [MizDirected](http://archiveofourown.org/users/MizDirected/pseuds/MizDirected) and [Kuraiummei.](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Kuraiummei/pseuds/Kuraiummei)


	5. The Verakan

**The Nexus, Zeng He System, Heleus Cluster, Andromeda - the bridge**

Shepard felt like she was seeing the place much sharper then her last visit to the station. Fifteen minutes later she realized it was not her eyesight, but the lights. On her way to Ops to attend the briefing on 'What the hell had gone down on the Nexus and why the Hyperion arrived as 'late' as it did.' she saw the station's repair crew fixing light after light to bring a little life to the formerly dim-red corridors. "Looks a lot less like a battlefield and more like an actually inhabited station." She mumbled on her way. Kosta nodded. "Still she's in bad shape though"  
"Who wouldn't be?" Shepard saw memories of Grissom Academy flash by her eyes. Plasticky white walls laced with blood and reaper-parts.  
She inhaled deep. "I never liked that immaculate white design." "No? Well, trust me you will like the bridge." Kosta grinned. "Tell me why you are here again Kosta?" Shepard grumbled. The man just grinned.  
But, true to his word he had been. The bridge 'was' something else. Meters high view screen displaying the unfinished half rather than the 'torn to pieces'-one. Encased in the sky-blue of the gas-giants methane clouds, it almost was an upside down sky.  
Yet a lot of time to gawk she wasn't given. The two were shepherded into the box-filled office to the left side of the bridge.  
"Ah, Pathfinder" Shepard tried not to wince too visibly. "Just Shepard will do director." She tried. The Salarian would not have it and shook his head. "Unacceptable. You represent our only hope for survival. Bearing the title is a privilege."  
Two sentences and she already felt like chucking the Salarian out of the nearest airlock. "I'd suggest we drop this issue and continue on to whatever it is you called me here for, Tann."  
"Very well." He huffed and led her along a narrow path into a darkened yet vast space with panoramic windows and what seemed to be empty displays. What was this, a museum? She lifted a brow.  
Ahead of her awaited captain Dunn in a classical 'at ease but not at ease' pose. Her hands wrung tightly behind her back. Beside her was the female Krogan she had met before. Kesh, she recalled. Nakmor Kesh. And to Jodum Tann's left was director Addison and Tiran Kandros.  
"Let us commence the briefing." Tann gestured and with a touch on his omni-tool the center machine, she realized now a holo projector, hummed to life.  
"We arrived about nine standard cycles ago and began our program to build up the Nexus. You were scheduled to arrive two cycles after that." Tann gazed to captain Dunn. "Together with the Leusinia, the Paachero and the Natanus. None of you ever showed up until yesterday."  
Seeing no one answered or asked, the Salarian continued. "This delay was unaccounted for in terms of supplies. Mainly." His short style of speaking grated more on Shepard than Mordin's way of speaking ever had. And Mordin spoke a hell of a lot faster than that.  
"Food shortages and a lack of progress caused a rebellion to happen aboard the Nexus. We suppressed it and remained in control, we had the offending parties exiled by lack other options. " Tann looked sideways to the Krogan.  
"Then, twenty-three days ago, an alien species approached the Nexus. Diplomatic attempts failed and we were overtaken and boarded." Even Tann seemed uneasy now.  
"The current census is almost one fifth of our original, post-rebellion crew count. We lost over nine-hundred-and seventy-one. "  
Shepard frowned. "Dead?"  
"No, Missing. "  
Okay that set off a whole herd of alarms. "Don't go telling me we got collectors in this galaxy too." She spoke under her breath and frowned.  
"We are currently in the process of extensive forensic investigation. The Kett, as you call them, were planning something. So much is indicated by the strange alterations to the Nexus's power distribution network."  
Shepard found herself nodding.  
Suddenly the holo terminal before them sprung alive with footage from mounted camera's on the Nexus's hull. Displaying a massive cruiser with armaments the Turians would get jealous of.  
"This is all the information we managed to put together before they scrambled our systems." Nakmor Kesh spoke and stepped forward. "I don't know what precisely. But I can tell you they were adapting the power systems for something foreign. And I bet my tail on it that it had to do with that cruiser."  
Shepard squeezed her eyelids together, but no solid answer came. But an idea, did.  
"Did you see where they went off to? When did this cruiser leave?"  
"About a week ago." Tann spoke. "We cannot be certain. Records are in concise. As for where it went." The Salarian smiled. "Our last special ops team got a tracker on its hull before being abducted. Should someone get close enough a scanner will pick it up."  
No way she could risk the Hyperion on the plan forming in her head. Not with so many lives aboard still in stasis. A shuttle? No. She sighed deep.

"Addison?" Tann spoke. "Right." The woman looked somber and skeptical. Hardened by the events that had taken place.  
"We all know of your achievements in the Milky-way galaxy, Pathfinder." Tann looked up. "I had friends in STG who wouldn't shut up about you. Whether you are the best pathfinder however, I doubt. Nevertheless, you are all we have with Alec Ryder dead and his only remaining daughter in a coma."  
Somehow she was not exploding yet. Perhaps because he was right. She was a shitty pathfinder. She had read up about them, golden world-finding galaxy gallivanting explorers. Peacekeepers, not soldiers like her. Fresh and new, not jaded and scarred by a war she had been warning for but no one believed would be coming.  
"You are all we have right now. It will take a soldier, not a pathfinder to bring our people back." Tann eyed her directly for the first time. She did not back away from the challenge.  
"You don't know if they are still alive." Shepard played the devil's advocate.  
"I don't. But reason suggests they will be. Or at least a few of them." Tann looked away now. "These people have made themselves our enemy, Shepard. They have no reason nor diplomacy."  
"We kind of barged into their galaxy. Do you think we would be as kind as not to shoot when aliens from another galaxy show up here? Because the human's got shot at when we did." She turned to Kandros. "No offence"  
"None taken" The Turian grinned.

"They took our people, Shepard." Tann emphasized every word. "If it is any comfort at all to you, I am not asking you to butcher them, just to bring our own people back." He placed both his hands down on the holo-projector table firmly. 

Shepard inhaled deep. She had to know what she was getting into. With who. Tann was an ass, but with this he had convinced her he was only that. An ass. Who was genuinely looking out for his people. Be his reasons corporate or compassion inspired.  
Tann took back the lead in the conversation.  
"If you are done questioning my morality" He bit. "-then you can take a look at the last functional survey ship we have. The SSV Tempest. " An image of a sleek-lined ship showed up. She came up a lot smaller then the Normandy, Shepard noticed as the dimensions and specifications of the ship scrolled over the screen. Small and nimble. No need for thanix cannons on a survey-ship.  
"Her command codes will be transferred to you within the hour" Tann spoke and regarded her. She did not answer the look.  
"Can we talk in private, director?"  
The Salarian looked somewhat confused but gestured her along to his office, up a flight of stairs and past glass doors. 

"I will be straight with you" Shepard spoke calmly. "I was roped into this" She gestured with her fingers. "against my will."  
"I have done a hell of a lot for a hell of a lot of people in the past. People who now are dead." She felt her throat lock up. "Some of which I never got to say goodbye to."  
She fell quiet a moment. Her memories taking her back to her hospital bed in London. ..it was London, right? She shook her head.  
"So you will understand I am thoroughly done with playing fetch, and doing other’s dirty work." She turned around and stared out of the window looking over the bridge. Tears formed unwillingly and her hand cramped over her upper arm.  
"You want me to go and bring those people home. Fine. But I want something in return." She hardened her voice.

Slowly, she turned around.  
"I want you off my back. Now, and for a long time." She locked him with a glare. "I will do, the things I believe need doing, on the way I want to fucking do them. You can bring shit to my attention. But I am in no way shape or form obligated to sit, bark, and shake. Got it?"  
"The use of human acronyms is, confusing and superfluous." The Salarian shook his head. "I will give you your freedom where and when I can, Shepard. If you want true freedom I will give you a shuttle and you can pilot it to wherever you desire, back to the milky-way for all I care." The Salarian remained composed.  
"This, is the best I can do. If you have suggestions about your crew I will hear them. Your standing mission as pathfinder is to find us all a home." The Salarian closed his eyes. "You are our _only_ pathfinder. The only one with a working implant to communicate with your SAM.  
Once more, Shepard. You are our only hope. If that hasn't gotten through your thick skull yet then may my words do, because without you we will starve in less than a year."

"Command Codes have been transferred" Sam notified. Shepard exhaled silently. 

"Good luck."

—

"Come in" Shepard tried to hide how hoarse her voice was. Her cabin had been some solace, but sharing it with five others made for a lot of traffic.  
"Sorry" Her Scottish-accented astrophysicist and molecular biologist roommate smiled. "Bad time?"  
Shepard shook her head. "Nope, I feel like a daisy" She smiled ruefully. This was one of the room-mates she liked more. She didn't pry or ask and happily bumbled off about her own work and studies. Shepard did not mind listening to her rambling as it actually helped her get on top of whatever pain or sadness had her pinned down. Plus she had amazing tastes in tea.  
"What's up Suvi?" Shepard asked. "Oh- nothin' I only just got to hear my posting!" She grinned and dialed her Omni-tool to display her official duty registration.  
SSV Tempest  
Shepard felt a genuine smile. At least one person she knew. "So you are going to be my science officer?"  
Suvi grinned with a beaming pride. And then realized; "Wait- You are my CO?" She asked wondered. "I was wonderin' what you did for a livin' "  
Shepard closed her eyes and laid back in her bunk. "I’m the pathfinder."  
Suvi let a yelp. 

—  
"You cannot do this! I was part of the design team- you cannot simply replace me with a grease monkey pilot!"  
A headache announced itself already and Shepard hadn't even reached the docks. The Salarian's high pitched 'absolutely not-amused' voice resonated along the tall dock walls.  
The human across of him inhaled to match the Salarian's volume.  
"STOP" Shepard spoke up and with a frown walked over. "I am barely feeling the caffeine in my veins yet, yelling in my vicinity is courting the devil."  
"And just who do you think you are?" The Human male asked. Eyes of thunder shimmering in his head.  
"The fucking pathfinder." Shepard answered back with a flat face. "What the hell is this argument about?"  
"Finally!" The Salarian spoke up as the Human looked stunned. "I was originally chosen to pilot the Tempest but due to some sucking up by this-" He gestured. "They pulled me off the Tempest!"  
Shepard saw fire in that Salarian's eyes. The first in Andromeda.  
"Okay" Shepard rubbed her temple. "First of all. I decide who the hell gets on my ship and who doesn't. Not you" She eyed the Salarian. "Nor you, nor whomever you sucked up to" She eyed the human.  
"You want to pilot this ship, you send your credentials to me." She set off and walked past them. "End of discussion."

When the racket had quietened, Shepard found herself quite in denial. In her heart, the Normandy carried a place no other ship could take. She was beautiful, quiet and deadly. But this ship she saw moored before her, certainly had a charm. Even with the many trolleys and worker-bees still circling her, fixing the damages of the Kett boarding party she imagined, she could see her sleek form and could estimate how nimble she'd be in the right hands.  
Oh how Joker would have wished to be here. Then again, he'd never leave the SR2, the love of his life. Because the second love of his life lived in her hull. EDI.  
She swallowed hard as emotions surged. Her people, her crew.  
She found a quiet corner against the tempests hull and sat down. The cold tritanium against her skin she sunk into her memories.  
They were so broken. Anything from after the crucible was- fragmented. Messed up. In cohesive. Every time she tried to grasp at memories, they broke apart. Every time she thought she knew something, it turned out to be false. They had crashed somewhere, she knew. But- he had visited her? No?.. Why could she not remember.  
She woke with a start as an alarm sounded. Turned out it was nothing but that of a power-tool getting to work, but her heart would not stop speeding. Dazed, she gazed around.  
"You really shouldn't be up there without a safety harness you know?" A warm tinted voice spoke. "Sorry, I wanted to see her up close" Shepard forced her sadness away and pulled on her day to day face.  
"She's a beauty isn't she?" He grinned with the look of a man in love. "I'm Gil, head honcho around here. Whose my baby's fan?"  
Shepard climbed her way down. "The bigger head honcho" Shepard found a bit of lightness and smiled more genuine. "Shepard, pathfinder"  
"Oh! You're the new boss?" He grinned. "Pleased to meet you m'am."  
"Pleased to meet you too, Gil-"  
"Brodie m'am" The man grinned and Shepard shook his hand. "Gil Brodie, so you are my head engineer?"  
"Sure am. I will have this baby purring like a kitten soon. Just you wait" He had a casual professionalism over him Shepard decided she liked.  
"I bet she cuts through space like a hot blade cuts butter."  
"Aye she does." He grinned with pride. Then he looked to her with different eyes. Ones seeking hope that she had seen far too often. "Will we be chasin' after the bastards? Getting our people back?"  
Shepard nodded. "We will or die trying."

—

The human, had stepped to his commander. Who had stepped to Jarun Tann. Who had probably told him the one thing he hadn't wanted to hear. 'It's up to Shepard' Because she had gotten an empty roster with suggestions on people to fill it with. When she took a look at the second mail in her inbox, she knew the human would have no place on her Tempest. It was a CV from Kallo Jath, the Salarian she had ran into before. Complete with references to vids of his previous jobs and detailed flight-scores from the simulators.  
'Tempest Hanger, 1800 hours tomorrow' Was her single reply. Overachieving but serious, and a tad competitive. She could deal with that. Second position to fill was that of the science officer. Suvi Anwar's name was written down, Shepard liked her- she was serious about her job yet merry and kind in everything else. She took a sip of coffee and exhaled slow.  
"Gil Brodie as head of Engineering" She hummed, and smiled. She actually didn't dislike him either. Check.  
Medical. "You do not get to pick these. -Tann" She grumbled. But somewhere she understood. He wanted reinsurance. She was a tad lunatic sometimes after all. It made her miss Dr.Chakwass her eternal patience with her. Whomever Tann would pick they would be having field-days with her, she grinned.  
The last item on the docket was the one she disliked the most. Her CO.  
She only ever had two CO's. The other she hadn't ever accepted as such. Despite her feeling privileged to it. She felt bile rise on the thought of the picture perfect Miranda.  
She was the reason she was out here in this god damned galaxy instead of... home. With those she loved. Her 'sorry but not sorry' note had been left for her in her omni-tool. Nothing else. No explanation, nothing.  
Anger wormed it's way into her like a thresher maw punched through Tuchanka's concrete. It blocked out her hearing, her vision. Panting hard, she tried not to spook her fellow room-mates by punching the walls. Instead she left and set out without a destination in mind. From walking into running. Pushing away the deck plating stride by stride, making her heart pump blood around even faster. Until she stood face to face with space.  
The great void, as Samara had called it. It lured her. Taunted her. She punched the window, again, and again, wishing with an anger sickened mind for it to shatter and for the cold void to take her home. To her crew. Her ship. Her HOME.  
'Meet me at the bar...'  
Her heart cracked in two, and her grey eyes beheld the void as they filled with tears and a guttural whimper was pulled from her, before she collapsed. 

For she knew, she had remembered, that those were the last words he had ever gotten to say to her. 

He was her CO. The only CO she'd accept. Clinging to the observatory's rail she stared through empty eyes as she watched the past she did remember play out. How they had fought through so many fires together. Back to back where it was needed, or laying beside one another with rifle's at the ready.  
He had always had her back.  
But now she stood alone before the wrath of a new galaxy that did not welcome them. 

—

"Alright. Everyone here?" She eyed over the mass of people that had gathered by the Tempest's bow. Familiar faces amidst unfamiliar ones. "Director Tann send me a set of coordinates where they extrapolated the Kett cruiser may be. This means we have no time to lose. Introductions will have to happen when we are on our way so I will keep this brief. I am Jane Shepard, pathfinder due to unlucky circumstances." She omitted her unwillingness.  
"Today, were shoving off in one hour to track and board the Kett cruiser and bring back our people." She pushed her hands on her hips. "This will not be easy. I will need your best. I know some of you haven't had time to learn the ropes on this ship. Make do as best as you can." She inhaled deep.  
"Dismissed." She moved out of her parade-rest and made a bee-line for two individuals wearing medical symbols on their uniforms.  
"Doctor Carlyle. Doctor T'Perro" She gazed to both of them. "Has Director Tann assigned you to me?"  
Carlyle grinned. "Yes, You are stuck with us pathfinder."  
"Director Tann decided, due to the nature of your mission it would be wise to have more medical staff." Shepard sighed. "You mean 'due to the nature of Shepard'" She spoke flat.  
T'Perro however just smiled. "That too, you have seen a lot and deserve the best support."  
Shepard sighed inwardly. Asari. So eternally good at making bad things sound better than they are. "If you excuse us, we have a lot of shipping in to do." T'Perro smiled and left.  
With a grumble, Shepard stopped Brodie. "How many bunks we got in the Tempest?"  
"Six, if you don't count your personal quarters." He smiled. Shepard felt her headache worsen. If her personal quarters were more ridiculous then they had been on the Hyperion before she had given them up she swore she'd write a letter of complaint the size of the ship to its designer. "Show me."

"What. The. Actual. Fuck."  
She stood amidst a cavernous space at the lower deck, forward side. "Who designed this Brodie."  
"Just Gill will do m'am. And that'd be a list of people I'll shoot you their emails." he tapped at his omnitool with a grin.  
"This is NO way to design a ship which has only SIX FUCKING BUNKS for a crew compliment of FOURTEEN!" She fumed and paced around. "I am just fucking sure of it they made it so to accommodate the size of Ryders fucking ego or something." She huffed. "Get the quartermaster to refurb the port-aft storage room with one fucking desk and one fucking bunk." Shepard sighed.  
"Then get some bunk beds on the left half-" She gestured. "And some rec-room on the right half."  
"Aye m'am" Gill seemed to be having a field-day with her anger, as if he had mirrored the sentiment for a long time. "It shouldn't push us back. I'll get it done in flight."  
"Thank you." Shepard felt somewhat guilty for yelling. "And I am sorry for my outburst but this is my second ship where some designer thought it necessary for a captain to need to be able to perform Elcor ballet in her bedroom." She rose her hands up out of frustration. Gil was just snickering his nuts off. 

"Why was I not informed of our departure, Pathfinder?"  
Shepard suddenly did not feel for enjoying her last station lunch. "Because you are not coming." She exhaled without turning around.  
"With all due respe-"  
"Shove it." Shepard forced herself to eat. She hadn't eaten in too long. "You don't respect me one damn bit. So quit pretending."  
Shepard heard the silence fall. She took another bite.  
"I am your second in command." She stated. "Right" Shepard reflected. She sensed a biotic aura before her eyes reported it, and in a blink turned on what was pure left-over reflexes from the war. Her carnifex rested, still, on Cora Harper's forehead.  
"Stand down" Shepard spoke cool. Cora's aura flickered out of existence and she made herself tall.  
"This." Shepard lowered her handgun and placed the safety back on. "Is why you are not coming. I cannot do my work when I expect a stab in the back. You got skipped over for pathfinder. Alec had not the guts nor desire to tell you. Tough shit. I don't want to be pathfinder, yet here I am having an Ai in my head who tells me this cannot be undone." She felt bad for a flicker. SAM had been quiet, and courteous when he did speak. She'd make it up to him later.  
"So until you prove to me, Tann may appoint you my second in command all he likes. You are not getting on my boat."

"And how exactly would you have me prove that?" Harper spoke with challenging eyes. "Here, on a station where I had a chance to, but you did not let me take it."  
Shepard frowned. "Sorry, but time to built trust is in very short supply right now, I got a job to do and people to save."  
Cora eyed her skeptically. "So now you suddenly feel passionate about your mission?"  
"Finding your damned golden worlds, no, not particularly. I am no glorified real estate agent" Shepard bit back. "But saving people." Her face hardened. "I have always felt passionate about that. If I hadn't, the milky way would have been purged of all life." Her anger coalesced in her eyes as she stared Cora Harper down.  
It was enough to force her to back down. "You need me" She spoke. "I want to save these people as well." Her fist clamped together.  
Shepard had turned off. "I cannot use you if you challenge me. End of story."  
"Shepard" Cora spoke up, halting Shepard in her exit. "..." She thought over her words. As if she was debating on asking something, but then decided against it.  
"I will obey your commands on this mission. Even if I disapprove. In the field you can trust me to have your back."  
The words lit a fire of anger and sadness in Shepard, but she spared this anger from her voice, it wasn't meant for her.  
"On one condition" She turned around. "If you do challenge me in my command, or otherwise, you step down. Are we clear?"  
Cora nodded slow. "We are. I accept."

**The Tempest, Docked on the Nexus, Zeng He system, Heleus Cluster, Andromeda**

Where everyone was brimming with excitement, vengeance and hope, Shepard felt none of it. She felt empty, exhausted and shallow. "Alright Kallo, take her out, then set a course for the first set of coordinates and commence scanning. If you get a hit. Notify me."  
"Aye Shepard." The Salarian began dialing in the controls of the ship and she hummed to life under their feet. Suvi was getting her bearings on the Tempest's scanning array's.  
"Incoming message." Kallo notified and Shepard nodded. "Put it on."  
The directors face appeared. "I wish we could give the Tempest the ceremony she deserves, but haste is of the order. Safe journeys, Pathfinder."  
Shepard nodded. "Thank you Director."  
She was off the bridge before they hid FTL, the subtle shift rippled through her as she walked across the previously-precarious and obnoxious glass catwalk to the bridge. It had been replaced with a standard, safer metal panels and railings. At the aft atrium, she found Kosta and Kirkland watching the Nexus through the viewer windows. Useless as they technically were, Shepard couldn't find it in herself to complain against it. Fisher sat a little further back. Tann had been unsure about bringing marines, but she needed a competent and firefight steady team at her back. Dunn had given them her blessings.  
She descended down to the empty vehicle bay and onwards unto the engines, checking up on Gil to make sure everything was running well.  
Halfway down to the lower deck she realized she was making her rounds. Like she always had back on the Normandy. She swallowed bitterly and moved herself to the medical bay to find T'Perro and Harry Carlyle chatting at the small little nook filled with a table and a pair of chairs. Finally, she retreated to her aft port cargo-bay, where a desk and chair, a cupboard with some books- and a bunk were placed for her comfort.  
Her eye was caught on one small detail however. A crewmen, maybe Gil himself- had placed a small scale model of the Normandy SR2.  
With her emotional outburst, her pissing contest with Harper, the little ship was the last drop in a very very full bucket of water.  
She broke down over her bunk, clenching it to her chest and screamed her lungs out into her pillow. 

**SSV Normandy SR-2, Sol System, Milky Way galaxy**

The smoke hung thick and oily in the air. No air-scrubber could filter that out. Joker was coughing his lungs out as he pulled out the safety pin and tossed the foam grenade into the heart of the fire. Like a massive version of a human treat, popcorn, the grenade exploded open and swallowed most of the fire, the bridge and Joker. Gruffly and with a hurting spine he pulled the pilot out of the foam. By the amount of decibels coming from his pained whining Garrus figured he had broken a rib or fifteen. How many did humans have again? Best make it worth it- he dragged the helmsmen to the lower decks as he yelled to the confused crew to put the fires out. It looked like the hangar bay had taken the worst of it, he had no idea if Vega and Cortez had been down there when they crashed. At least sickbay looked like it had made it through the rough landing in decent shape. As did Doctor Chakwas. "What-" She looked dazedly up to him, until she realized he carried a wounded Joker. Her face switched from dazed to calm so fast Garrus knew a Turian or two who'd be jealous of that amount of grit.  
He began moving after helping Joker down on a stretcher.  
The elevator was down she he climbed to the engineering deck. Tali was with her fleet and the Geth, but Adams, Donnely and Daniels were down here. Gladly enough before Garrus could even reach the engine-room he heard yelling. The commanding kind rather than the desperate. "Stabilize the core! Vent into atmo if you have to- the alternative is us being spread in super-fine particles by drive core explosion!"  
When Garrus saw them scramble and run, and yell techno babble faster than his translator could keep up he decided he'd rather be in an explosion without knowing then counting down towards it.  
The windows into the hangar bay had shattered, and with a neat but not entirely painless drop he saw the devastation that was the hanger bay. The Kodiak drop shuttle lay in pieces under deep gray rocks. The hull was open. Garrus was staring into space through the cracks in the metal. The only thing that kept them from choking was Liara's force field. "Garrus- you need to find Cortez and Lt.Vega "She panted and had obviously broken her arm. He didn't need to be told twice to hurry up. Vega's bulky body wasn't hard to find, and under him lay a passed out and badly bruised Cortez. It looked bad. Garrus was pretty certain human bone's weren't meant to be piercing the skin. With a deep breath and a lot of pain he hoisted the both of them and retreated back up the ladder. Carrying them one by one. On the last pass Liara followed, she looked to be under considerable duress, and deeply relieved when the emergency seals on deck three held.  
"Where are we?" She asked sweated. Garrus saw the whole crash play out again from the CIC.  
"We were flung off-course by the firing of the crucible. We crashed into Earth's moon." Liara looked haunted a moment. "She succeeded? The Crucible? It fired?! Are the reapers gone?"  
Garrus nodded slow. "It fired... and we don't know. Everything's fried."  
They crashed on Luna, and the Crucible had fired. She had done it.

**The Tempest, in FTL, Heleus Cluster, Andromeda Galaxy**

Shepard breathed in deeply. Falling asleep half draped over her bunk had gotten her back-muscles to sing complaints. Quietly she clung to the bitter sweet lingering after-taste of her dreams. Their one last party before the final assault. Her lips curled into a shallow smile. But it went paired with a sharp pain in her chest. She had had her chance there. Why had she not taken it?  
Her session of self torture ended with a comlink blinking on her omnitool. "Yeah?" She croaked.  
"Shepard." SAM's voice feeded through. "Is this a convenient time?" Concern laced the Ai's voice. "Yeah" She spoke soft. "Shoot Sam."  
"My link to the ships QEC router has been completed and is holding at optimum parameters."  
"Good to know Sam. Do you have any more info regarding the mess we are undoubdably storming ourselves into?" She asked and got up and began to change.  
"Not much. New data from the nexus detailing personnel experiences with the Kett are few and what of it is usable is even less. Several words in their language have been recorded, as well as some left-behind technology is being analyzed as we speak."  
Shepard nodded. "I see. Well we will need every bit of linguistic work we can get done. In the best scenario we will have nine hundred and seventy one passengers for a return flight. The best we can squeeze in the Tempest is seventy. If we stack them." Shepard grumbled. "No other space-faring vessel is available to assist us at this time, Shepard" SAM confirmed.  
Shepard held her head. "So they commission me to pull off a miracle. The best we can hope for is to be able to steal Kett transport shuttles. But that requires a grip on their form of communicating, as well as their network infrastructure. A hell of a lot to get done with as many people as we have."  
She finished dressing and left her hidey-hole to find a quiet vehicle bay. "In the absolute worst case, we are looking at hijacking the damned cruiser." She laughed without joy, but she still walked on. "I will visit the medical bay, SAM, set up a private and secure com-link to the Hyperion. I doubt the Nexus's comm. array is back online yet, and get them to ready a body of linguists and xeno-engineering specialists."  
"Will do Shepard." Sam closed the channel. 

Shepard waited for the doors to hiss open, then got face to face with the set of doctors who had tended to her awakening from Cryo. Harry Carlyle and Dr.Lexi T'Perro. "Good morning."  
"Morning Shepard" Lexi smiled but did not turn to face her, she was bent over her omnitool. Harry yawned and nursed his coffee before looking up. "Good morning Commander."  
The term set shivers loose. And the way she looked at him made him curve up a brow. "Sorry, I heard from SAM you prefer not to be called Pathfinder." Shepard had to process that for a moment, to get angry at the Ai or not to. Well, she couldn't exactly fault him for wanting to get on her good side. She let it slide. Commander, although no longer her official rank as far as she knew, was still far better than Pathfinder. Even if it was a lie.  
She shook her head. "SAM's right. But Shepard will do." Her mouth felt dry. "Are you both set up right? They are on the Kett's trail up there" She gestured to the bridge. "And I don't know how we will pull it off yet, but in the best scenario you are looking at over nine-hundred refugees."  
"We are ready. Though how will you get these people to safety?"  
Shepard grinned wry. "They didn't tell me that bit. We will have to figure it out on our own." She inhaled deep and walked into the antiseptic-smelling room to fetch some packages of medigel.  
Then she paused, thinking over something. She turned to Harry. "You don't.. happen to have aspirins, right?" She tried to look reserved.  
"Aspirins?" He looked up surprised. "That is ancient medicine Shepard." He smiled. Dr.T'Perro looked up with a question in her eyes.  
"Ancient Earth medicine from before we earned our seat on the galactic table." Harry smiled. "Why do you need it? We have far better drugs these days."  
Shepard crossed her arms and held a small smile. "Ancient they may be, but nothing cures my headaches like an aspirin doc."  
Harry chuckled. "Truly? Renidalin doesn't win from aspirins to you?"  
"Nope, and I tried. My-" Pain shot through her a moment, but she forced it down. "My previous ship doc, Dr. Chakwas always commissioned a stash for me. The ones that don't inflame the stomach, yaknow?"  
"I do." Harry frowned. "Next time we doc at the Nexus. I can have a batch readied for you then. We don't have the finer medicine synthesizers aboard the Tempest. " Shepard smiled. "Thanks doc. Me and my head appreciate it."

**The Tempest, observation deck, mid FTL, Heleus Cluster, Andromeda**

Shepard gazed around the massive table/holo projector. Gathered around it was each and every crewmember of the Tempest. She did not speak for a good while, causing nervous chatter to rise and fall in hushed tones.  
Slowly, Shepard rose herself up to her full length and laid her hand on the wooden trim. "First of all. This place is our new war room." She eyed no one in particular, but ran her eyes across the group, accessing her crew's mental whereabouts.  
"Not because I didn't like the term observation-deck, but because we are at war. Our enemy is an alien species we call the Kett. We don't speak their language, they don't speak ours." She eyed up to the mounted camera's. SAM had a live QEC link to the Hyperion, where a team of scientists had been hurriedly gathered.  
"They said hello with bullets, rather than words. Yet every war needs two parties." Shepard closed her eyes. "If possible, I'd like our contribution to this war to be as little as possible." She held up her hand as she saw some fierce defensive postures come up. "-as little as possible, until we discern their motives. Too many fucking wars were started due to a lack of communication. To quote one, the Quarian morning war." She changed her pose to hold a challenge to all who opposed her. Chin high and with a daring gaze.  
"So finding out their motives, is one of our top priorities. This is what home-base is going to help us figure out. Home-base is how we will refer to a team of scientists back at the Hyperion, and possibly later stationed on the Nexus. This team of Xeno-Anthropologists and Linguists will aid us in understanding their language, habits and will ultimately find out what drives them. SAM and Suvi Anwar will be coordinating with them. Anything you need to know, ask them. "  
"Home-Base's primary concern right now is with linguistics and learning to operate Kett technology. Why?" She rested her hands down on the table. "Because we have over nine-hundred people missing from the Nexus's main crew compliment. They weren't killed but purposely taken alive. They could all still be breathing now." She gestured for everyone to sit down, from defiant they had become more curious and receptive to her.  
"However getting nine-hundred or so people off the Kett cruiser will be no easy task. The tempest cannot transport them all back in one go. And the Nexus has no ships available other then short-range shuttles." Shepard dialed her omnitool. "Now if you take one look at the Kett ship you and me both will see that big guns look the same in this galaxy as they had in ours."  
The silence in the room settled with nodding people, a few of the crew leaned in closer to see, with the soft-spoken expletive mixed in here and there.  
"Those shuttles will be shot to pieces. So they are no option. This leaves us with our last plan." Shepard closed her eyes. Here came the bit she knew no one would like.  
"We need to hijack Kett drop ships. They have swarmed the nexus before, so they ought to have a bunch of them. And with each capable of holding about forty people- it is our best shot. They withstood all-" She shook her head. "Initiative fire when the Kett boarded the Nexus, so they are sturdy. Under no circumstances can we risk the Hyperion to the vicinity of that alien ship, not with so many souls aboard. But if all goes well, the Kett drop ships can make it quite a way and into hiding. We will pick them up and ferry them over one by one."

The silence was more than Shepard had dared hope for. Rotten tomatoes had been flashing by her head when she concocted this plan. Instead of the pessimism she expected, most faces after a short pause lit up with an infectious hope shining in their eyes.  
"How's that home base?" She asked and looked up.  
"It'll be tight- but we have quite the good set of heads together here. I think we can do this if you get us enough material to work with."  
Shepard nodded. "You heard them. Scan everything you find. Every label, everything that could remotely look like text. Scan. SAM will tend to the rest"  
"Yes Shepard" SAM answered. "Good." She inhaled deep. "We haven't found the bastards yet, where are we on that Kallo?"  
The Salarian stood. "We have the tracker signal and are scanning as we make a cautious approach. SAM extrapolated an ETA of eight hours."  
Shepard nodded. "Alright, enough time to prep. There will be several teams. First of I will lead the boarding party. With me are Kirkland, Fisher and Kosta. Considering the danger of the mission, we will move silently. Reconnaissance and intel gathering are our main objectives. We need to get home base the intel they need to allow us to operate Kett systems, obtain ship schematics and last but not least, find our captives."  
She then closed her eyes. Loathed as she did. She opened her eyes. "Harper. You are leading our secondary team. Gather intel. Mark hostage navpoints, and find the physical location of the drop ships.  
Ideally, team one will draw the Kett fire so you, when we can operate the Kett drop-ships, can evac the civilians." Shepard eyed her. This was one hell of a gamble. She did not trust Harper. For more than one reason. But she had no choice. She had to trust on the sincerity she had seen in-between the anger and hostility the day before.  
"If and when we can command Kett drop ships, we will commence an assault on the bridge to draw them away. It should give you the time you need, or at least all the time we can give you."  
"Understood pathfinder." Harper spoke, her eyes carefully kept neutral. "We will get them out."  
Shepard nodded. "Rendezvous point is here." She displayed a set of coordinates that led to a dense nebula. "I am not going to count on my lucky stars and hope we have a horde of pilots amongst our hostages, so be prepared to pre-program them." She spoke to both SAM and Harper.  
"Furthermore." She exhaled slow. "... we barely know Heleus. Be prepared for anything to happen in there. If you see people, aliens, of any kind needing help, help." Shepard frowned. "Worry about risk assessments and everything else later."  
"Alright" She exhaled. "This should about cover it. It will be messy" Her stomach told her to prepare for the worst, but that was hardly an inspirational thing to say. "But we will do whatever we can to bring them home. Go and prep, sleep, pray, anything you need to do before we go, do it. We fight in seven-and-a-half hours." She rose up to stand. "Dismissed. Senior staff remain please"

"This is crazy! How can they expect us to save so many with only one ship!" Liam angrily gestured into the air. "Good question. You can ask Director Tann when we get back" She rubbed her temples.  
"Sit a second. Would ya?"  
Harper obeyed, as did Kosta, Dr.Carlyle, Brodie and Kallo.  
"..." Shepard folded her hands. "SAM, you mentioned before the Kett seem to have a superior understanding of biology and genetics than us. Right?"  
"Correct"  
"Then is it a stretch to assume they dabble in genetic mutation? That sort of stuff?"  
"No. It is feasible. In the preliminary autopsies of Kett bodies left on the Nexus, a team of xeno-biologists have discovered possible evidence of extensive genetic modification."  
Shepard softly let her head bump on the table. "Great." She inhaled deep, and exhaled slow before she continued.  
"Just, ready yourselves. I have been on a collector base in our home galaxy. Genetic modification experts inspired by reapers." Or rather, created by them. She decided she'd spare herself the pain of needing to explain.  
"What they do to their subjects is not pretty." She eyed Harper, who nodded slowly. "We will be ready."  
"You won't." Shepard spoke but it was void of hostility. "But try to be." She stood. "We need to get these people home." She turned away and to the big starboard side window. "The drop-off point is on the starboard stern Kallo, when you dropped us get the hell away from those guns. If the comm's die, the whole plan does."  
"Won't SAM be jammed by the Kett?" Kosta asked worried. "No, unlikely as Kett jammers were active on the Nexus and SAM had no issue with them."  
"Kett jammers work on standard radio frequencies, not on a QEC link." Shepard frowned. "Yeah, but not everyone has a damned entangled quantum state particle in their head." She turned to Kosta. How could she have over-seen that. "SAM, extrapolate from available sensory data, if I were a jammer on a Kett ship, where would I be?" She asked with a worried frown. "Would I even be a device or would I be built into the ship's structure?"  
SAM didn't offer a reply right away. 

"Estimated from currently available data, the Kett prefer a modular approach to their equipment. Hypothetically it should be located near the center of the ship, close to the main drive core."  
Shepard felt her head throb. "We are so under-staffed and under-gunned." She groaned.  
"Don't worry Shepard, I can go and take it out-"  
Shepard eyed him skeptically.  
"...-with Kirkland!" Kosta tried for a hapless smile. Shepard sighed. It was such a big god-damned risk. "SAM, ask Kirkland up here please." She held her forehead. She had _no_ choice! She hated having no choice but to endanger people.  
But if anything, Kirkland eased her fears a bit. "We can take out that jammer no trouble. "

Yet Shepard did not share his sunny disposition. She had lost too many people by sending them in alone. She pushed herself to accept it, but then realized once again how stubborn she truly was.  
"No. The four of us will head for the drive core and take out the jammer, this whole OP is risky as shit already. I am not taking on more of it." She shook her head.  
"Rest up, check your gear and make sure to be ready for our drop." She eyed Harper. "Who will you bring?" 

**Tempest, Armory room, Tafeno System Outskirts, Heleus Cluster, Andromeda**

With her armor molded around her, Shepard stood taller and stronger than she ever could in a briefing room.  
"Remember your promise, Harper." She warned as she stared into her eyes. "You will take Fisher and Dr.Carlyle. End of discussion" She fitted her glove in place. The other human seemed to contain her urge to fight. It was enough for Shepard. Her crew were allowed to be angry and not to agree. As long as they shoved it somewhere when it was mission time. Now wasn't the time for complaints. The armory was tight as they got outfitted, and the levels of apprehension were high. With her Ghost and Incisor on her back, and supplies triple checked and helmet hanging off her belt she turned to return to the bridge to give the rest space.  
"Exiting FTL jump in five" Kallo counted down. They would exit FTL in the nearby nebula to cloak their arrival. The subtle gravity shift was all one felt on this beauty of a ship.  
"Shepard!" Kallo and Suvi called in a horrified unison. Running Shepard got onto the bridge, but when she gazed through the main viewer her heart stopped beating a good few seconds.  
"Get me a registration!" She moved up next to Kallo as there was not only the haunting form of a Kett-made Cruiser-sized vessel before them. But via umbilical cords, it was attached to a mirror-image of the Hyperion.  
"Oh no- no!" Kallo spoke faster than his hands moved over the controls.  
"It is the Paachero!- Shepard, they have my people- This is the Salarian Ark!" 

"Oh Fuck."

"Get an approach vector- we don't have long until we will get fired upon!" Shepard rushed to the rest of her team as they had all gotten on the bridge to see what was going on. Each and every one of them was filled with horror.  
"We have NO time to lose! We need to get on board." Kallo began his approach, but Shepards head was running wild. So many variables just changed she could toss out half her original plan. But as they approached closer and closer, yet unseen, a new plan began to form.  
"Harper" She called. "Change of plans. Your priority is securing the Paachero. See the state it is in and get it fixed to jump to FTL if you can! I will get whomever of us is on that Kett ship to the Paachero."  
Harper looked clear through her eyes when she nodded. "Everyone keep an open com-line. SAM, if you can, access the Paachero's systems without tipping off the Kett, see if she will fly-" Shepard was still yelling orders as the decon cycle started. 

This mission just got a whole lot more complicated.

**The Verakan - Kett Cruiser, Tafeno System, Heleus Cluster, Andromeda**

Plan stealth was dead. Dead and buried six feet in-between six boards of wood. Their breach had tripped a silent alarm and now everything was sirens, gunfire and angry alien yelling. "Not my fault this time!" Kosta yelled over the chattering of his SMG.  
"Still blaming you" Shepard panted and spit out blood of her bust up lip as she popped out of cover and took down two of the lumbering Varren rip-offs.  
"Too bad Kosta, no score" Kirkland grinned. Shepard bit her lip and pushed up. She had her new cloak waiting for her, but she felt like having an ace up her sleeve. Assuming your enemy is stupid will get you killed.  
Exhaling hard she dropped the last one. "Let's move, more will come. SAM, any way to shut down this alarm?"  
"Bottom corridor to your left. This is the origin of the sound. I lack data for a soft-ware override." "Got it, Kosta, get scanning whilst I make this thing shut up!" She hopped down and shot the speaker until it only croaked. "What’s the status of our comlink?" She asked SAM. "Down, with the exception of helmet comms. Short range only." Shepard frowned. "Best hurry to that jammer. Let’s go people!" Kirkland joined up with them, leaving Kosta to arrive as last.  
The roundish almost alien submarine look rubbed on Shepard. Perhaps she preferred clean plasticky white walls just a bit more. Resistance came mostly in pockets. Each one stronger than the last. They were still testing them. Shepard didn't like it. She preferred a bloody lengthy battle- then victory, over these kinds of guerilla tactics.  
It took them plowing through another group of Kett to reach the engine room. As she scanned everything from top to bottom, Kosta went looking for anything resembling a jammer, and Kirkland kept guard.  
"Commander" Kosta yelled from somewhere above. "You gotta see this-"  
She closed her omnitool after scanning a wall of angry red-text on a terminal.  
"Look." Kosta spoke quietly as he stood in an antechamber above the drive core. Suspended from a rail hung an open pod, carrying a scent Shepard knew only too well. Piss and blood.  
"Shit. We need to hurry. Did you find that jammer yet?" She asked as she forced herself to scan the pod. "Not yet." Kosta moved. "Wait-" He spoke from around a corner.  
"Sample contains biological matter belonging to the milky way galaxy." SAM spoke quietly. "Shit. What?" She turned, whatever Kosta had found, or done, hell broke loose.  
Emergency bulkheads closed under them, separating Kirkland from Kosta and her. "Shit- Override it- SAM?"  
"Attempting." SAM's voice distorted. Shepard could see it wasn't going to work in time. "Kirkland!" She yelled, and gestured for him to get the hell out of there. "We will meet you on the other side!"  
She moved to Kosta. "This is it commander! The jammer-"  
"Good" She spoke on a terse tone and drew her X5 Ghost and pumped the device full of slag metal, then dragged Kosta through the only door left to them into the following hallway.  
A crackle came onto her ear then, the commsystem was back online! "Kirkland, talk to me!" She spoke. "I'm fine commander, but there are a hell of a lot of Kett going in your direction, with guns."  
"Helpful" She sighed in relief. "Get your ass to safety, we need to push on. Meet up with Harper."  
"Aye, stay safe m'am"  
"You too" She switched commlines to an already incoming line. "Harper, status?"  
"The Paachero has taken a beating and is dark and quiet, but serviceable. However getting refugees through the umbilical cords is going to be next to impossible. They are venting atmo."  
"Shit." A rifle shot raced over Shepards head. "I am open to suggestions. Did you locate any survivors?"  
"None. The Paachero is almost empty, 87% of the pods are gone."  
"Holy-" She bit her lip. "Get her ready to rumble and standby."  
"Home base, how are you with translations?"  
"Working double time." Came a spotty reply. Shepard shook her head, that meant a definite -not done-.  
"Kallo?"  
"We are holding out well, the Kett ship saw us but never had time to find a firing solution. We are safe."  
She exhaled. One thing was going well at least. She eyed Kosta. "We need to find our hostages. There is no time nor use for the diversion we planned." Kosta nodded. "I got you commander. This ship is positively massive in size for a cruiser." He mumbled.  
"It isn't." Shepard replied and stuffed a shot of medigel and stims through her armor-port. "It just looks that way due to the funky architecture." She shifted and peeked around the corner. "We tuck our cruisers full with decks from top to bottom. Break that up and you will be surprised."  
"Heh, I never knew you as a ship-nut commander." She smiled grim. "There's much you don't know about little 'ol me" She rolled out from the corridor and with two shots took down two Kett using her Incisor. He'd have been jealous. She smiled true.

 

Kosta was heaving his guts out. She could hardly blame him. At least he only threw up after the fight.  
The level of death, of suffering- Shepard felt herself reel- but not. Because she had seen this before.  
The Citadel. After she had charged into that beam, so many dead - piles upon piles of bodies. They stood in a vast room, under a chute, amidst human, turian, Asari and most of all, Salarian remains. Withering and left there to rot. The resistance in entering the labs had been substantial enough Shepard guessed the Kett were freaking out right about now. If they freaked out at all, because that needed a conscious. This room told her the Kett had none. That they were equal to reapers in their absolute disrespect for anything alive.  
It galvanized her weary bones. There had been over a hundred-thousand pods on the Paachero, as there had been the same number on the Hyperion. Eyeballing it, this was no room, it was a pit. Filled with bodies. Salarian bodies.  
"SAM... am I looking at the bigger part of the Salarian presence in the Andromeda?" She asked with a dead voice.  
"... most likely, Shepard." The Ai spoke mortified if she had to name the waver in his synthetic voice. 

She jammed her teeth together. Any desire she had held to try for diplomacy with this species burned away in her rage. It consumed every other emotion. So when three corridors later, after having scanned everything she could find, she felt not a single sliver of regret when she took aim and made a Kett scientists head explode as he stood over a screaming figure tied to an examination bench. The other three dropped in rhythm after the first. Low, deep booms resonated from her rifle. If Kosta had said anything she hadn't heard it.  
The screaming of the individual they were examining had stopped as abruptly as she had dropped the scientists. This was the first living being she had encountered on this dreaded vessel that hadn't been Kett.  
"Kosta" She spoke. The tenure of her face right now was ill reassurance for traumatized people. Besides he was the trauma and disaster relief specialist.  
She was hearing something. Her alarm rung. When she saw an obvious emitter at the ceiling, next to several terminals she decided to play it safe and shot the thing to hell. But in turn that unleashed equal hell. Bullets began flying and she was certain she heard Kosta scream somewhere. But habits took over- and with her anger blanketing out her senses and the enemy making a very brazen charge into the examination room instinct was at her helm, not intelligence.  
It led to Shepard being hidden in cover on the left side of the room, Kosta on the right, and the Kett in the fucking middle. Perfect. With precise shots she dropped them one by one until they got too close for comfort. Pulling out her X5 Ghost she forced them back.  
"-mmander!" She heard Kosta over the din of wanton fighting, but as she looked over to his side of the room she saw nothing.  
Suddenly sharp fangs buried its way into a soft spot on the side of her wrist armor. With a reflex she extended her omni-blade and shoved it down the beast gullet, then charged and rammed the second Kett with a battle cry that came from deep, deep within her. Her rage poured into her like she hadn't let it in a very long time.  
Only when the enemy stopped coming in close, and began to force them back into cover with their variant of the good old hand grenade, did she regain her senses. Her heart was hammering and she had a bleeding arm. Hitting her medigel she peeked around the corner with dread. Where the fuck was Kosta?  
"Commander-" He crawled and got down to weather another grenade impact. The sons of bitches were strong but their aim was shitty and Shepard was thankful for that.  
"Are you alright?"  
"No-" He eyed to someone she couldn't yet see. "He took my guns!" Kosta gestured, and Shepard crawled over only to freeze. For behind cover- she saw an alien she had never seen before, speaking - cursing- she guessed in a foreign tongue, and holding Kosta's SMG with a lot more competence then he ever had. This man was a soldier. A very scarred one. With open flesh-wounds where the scientists had been working on him.  
Shepard felt star-struck. She came eye to eye with hope. An enemy of the Kett-  
'The enemy of your enemy is your friend.'  
Only when he noticed she scanned him- genuinely to figure out if medigel would heal or kill him, she found herself face to face with the business end of his stolen SMG.  
Shepard resisted her urge to draw her own gun. "You aren't going to shoot me I am trying to scan you to make sure I am not going to accidentally kill you. _accidentally_ not intentionally." She kept talking hoping it'd buy her enough time. He did look absolutely confused.  
"SAM, now please-" She spoke up. "with a 97.4% certainty it is safe to treat his injuries with Medigel."  
"Thank you-" Shepard lowered her arms and held those immensely big eyes. Everything of him was... alien. But his not having shot her yet counted for something. In a single fluent move Shepard risked getting nicked by a couple of bullets as she ripped open a medigel pack and with a single gesture doused his open wounds in the stuff. He recoiled from her like a struck angry big alien. His tone defensive if she had to guess. But she saw him think. As more grenades exploded, he saw the stuff she had thrown onto him wasn't eating its way through his skin and was instead sealing over the wounds.  
All in the meanwhile, Kosta seemed to have moved away to where Shepard had been camping after her rage, away from the angry alien. But Shepard, too keen on hope pushed on. "Look- we probably don't understand a thing of one another yet bu-"  
"Vesagara!!" He yelled with a force that set her back- and his aim was on her forehead and her shields began to rattle and whine. With a hard head and disappointment in her eyes Shepard retreated back to the right side of the room.  
"VESAGARA!" She heard him yell. Whatever it meant she had no idea but it wasn't very welcoming. He kept on yelling- guns began firing.  
"He hit me and took my weapon" Kosta groaned. "And that after I freed him too-" "No time to whine over spilt milk" Shepard spoke with a dour face. "We can't force people to like us." She popped up out of cover and realized they had been here for far too long. A room with only one exit. They had placed down cover and had amassed on the other side. "We're trapped. Shit."  
When the Kett began firing again, she took her Incisor and laid in aim.  
"Vesagara nin bakti- yala thresh shiha-" The alien spoke and opened fire on the Kett. "Is it just me or does he sound like he is mocking them?"  
"I think he is mocking them, yes. And us for that matter" Kosta spoke up and threw a grenade.  
"Seriously you shouldn't go shooting people who saved you!" Shepard yelled back to the alien.  
"SAM?" "Yes Shepard?" "Send this audio and video to the home-base, try and see if you can strap together a translation, because with the looks of things now- we aren't getting out of here if we don't cooperate."

**The Verakan, two hours later**

It had turned into a siege. A siege with a lot of talking of two people who didn't understand a word the other said.  
The Kett had mounted a massive defense and were intent on keeping the three of them in the sealed examination room. Shepard was sneaking around and checking in crates to check for supplies. The Kett had shown a sickening level of curiosity for them, perhaps also for their stuff. It turned out that wasn't a bad hunch. She returned to the fire fight with ration bars and Salarian kitted pistols and ammunition.  
"Hang on."  
"Commander?" Kosta asked, he had been keeping up the pressure with her X5 Ghost. Shepard just beckoned him to stay as she snuck off.  
Utilizing her tactical cloak she peeked on the alien. Exhausted, if body language was universal. With a low arc- she tossed a canister of water, a pistol and ammunition to him.  
"Are you crazy commander!" Kosta peeked over and hissed through the comm.  
"Nope" Shepard snuck off. "At least I hope not." She watched the alien turn around all jumpy and discover the food, drink and ammunition. She dropped her cloak and popped out of a cover behind him. His look didn't exactly approach grateful, but it was a lot less resenting as it had been before.  
"Sie rav. Paara set pas." He grumbled from across his side of the barricades. "Yeah, you and me both buddy "Shepard sighed and shot round after round into the hard headed Kett. This fight was taking far too long. They had gotten local jammers as well- soon they'd finish the damned mounted gun and they could all have drinks at the bar.  
"Garish nam, Skutt uprooted darin."

Shepard chocked and her shot went wide- right as more Kett arrived and the gunfire increased threefold. "SAM?" She asked and ducked back under. "Did I? What did I hear? The home base did it?"  
"Progress is being made. Please continue providing input materia-" "They are breaching!!" Kosta yelled and Shepard was pulled out of the reverie.  
"Oh they are fucking _not_!" She leapt from cover and fired off an overload into the fray before firing her incisor in burst modus on target after target. Her shields whined and flickered. "Hey! Handsome alien talk to me!"  
Alien language filled with expletives -Skutt she recognized now- was fired back. But this time it sounded equal parts surprised as well as pissed. A heavy grenade forced Shepard to relocate back to another downed table. But when she saw the alien duck for the same table she knew he'd not make it. She lifted herself off her feet and shot out of cover on half-shields. The alien took a round to his thigh, but as he sunk together Shepard reached him and shielded him off with her dying shields as she pushed him back up his legs and threw him back behind cover. She hadn't made it back entirely in time, but she could live with three more holes in her. Exhaling she forced herself up her legs again. "It's funny- I've met a lot of alien societies, and the one thing they all have in coming is the euphemisms, wisdoms passed down through the ages- this is my favorite." She caught and returned a thrown grenade.  
"The enemy of my enemy is my friend" She panted as she ducked back down. And this time- the alien looked to her with a different set of eyes.

"We have that saying as well" Her translator spoke back to her as he changed his tone from hostile to pensitive. Shepard couldn't help but bear her biggest grin. "Seen as we are both firing at the Kett, that makes us friends" She grinned. "I am Shepard. That's Kosta - we are Humans and come from planet Earth, Sol system in the milky way galaxy. Andromeda's neighbor."  
The alien regarded her despite the building gun fire, as if deciding whether it was safe to return the greeting. 

"Jaal Ama Darav, I am Angara. "  
Shepard regarded him with a wide smile. He omitted his home, but she'd take all she could get.  
"Good to meet you." She reloaded her gun. "Now what do you say about getting out of this hell hole?"  
He lifted a brow in confusion.  
"Bad place" Shepard amended. "Agreed" He spoke with a hard tone. 

And it turned out Jaal Ama Darav was more then competent with her incisor. Where she tore down their shields with her recovered X5 Ghost- he finished them, allowing both her and Kosta to get over the Kett fortifications and clear the corridor.  
"Why are you here outsider?" He asked as he leaned to the wall of the corridor. "To get our people out." Shepard decided lying to him wouldn't do any good. "No one comes back from a Kett research facility Human."  
"You are" She grinned and took point. The expression, she guessed, he was making made no sense to her. There was no time for her to press him on that. "The plan is to sweep the other research decks for survivors then get the hell off this ship."  
"There is a second ward. This way" He spoke and led her along long dark corridors. "Behind!" She yelled as she saw a glimmer of a Kett rifle. Two shots by Jaal did not drop him so Shepard pushed herself into a charge and mowed down the three snipers with her ghost. Panting she took her last swig of water. "SAM, how long are we going for?"  
"Three and a half hours Shepard."  
She let Jaal and Kosta take point as they cleared the local jammers range. "Harper- Harper!" She yelled through the ear-splitting static.  
"Shepard- where were you?" Here was the indignation again. "The Paachero is having all systems ready. Any survivors?"  
"One" Shepard spoke. "We are headed to the second lab wing right now. But it is safe to say we will not find many Salarian’s there."  
"Why?"  
"...Because we encountered roughly sixty thousand or so dead." Shepard spoke quietly.  
After a long pause Harper spoke up more composed then Shepard thought she would be. "Understood"

**The Verakan, half an hour later**

Signs of hope. Dead Kett. Not so many dead Salarian’s or other species. And whether soldiers spoke a universal language- was something Shepard was now convinced of.  
They fought through concentrated pockets of Kett forces- and even with a limited vocabulary- the Angaran proved much more likeable to Shepard in combat then the crisis responder. He was fast and efficient. Even if she couldn't understand exactly what he called out- she knew the tone more than well enough to make an estimated guess.  
What more, he formed himself to her command. That was not something she had expected to happen. When their fight for the entrance to the labs was done, she reflected on the bodies.  
"These Kett did not anticipate us." She looked to the Angaran. "Do you know of anyone else who could be fighting them Jaal?"  
"No." He based his teeth a moment. "My people are long gone." Shepard nodded. "Alright. Well we took these by surprise. Be ready in there" She spoke to the both of them and pushed through the doors.  
Inside she found carnage and hell. Dead humans, Turians, Salarian’s, Asari and even more of Jaal's species. Angaran. But most of all. Dead Kett. Killed by shotgun. She gestured for them to proceed carefully and led the way through the blood-stained rooms.  
Two corridors further with no living soul in sight, Shepard could swear she heard gunfire. When they turned another corner, she knew she wasn't imagining it anymore. Jaal had picked up on it. "Fighting, ahead."  
Her heart set on a merry chase, but she forced her pace to remain controlled. She didn't feel like getting jumped.  
When the doors opened, she saw Kett, facing away from her and heard the booming cough of a shotgun. "Don't shoot our shooter" She hissed, then breached the doors and opened fire. She took down the first one with her X5 Ghost, then things quickly got so messy all she could do was switch to melee and draw her omniblade and hack into the Kett around her. Jaal shot them down by the bushes and Kosta's SMG chattered into one of the Kett's bodies. "Don't shoot! Cavalry is here!" Shepard yelled and kicked down a dead Kett body off her omniblade as she shot another. "Am I glad you are here" A flanged voice spoke up. "About damn time"  
It sent shivers through her. Shivers she couldn't afford to have right now. "Yeah well tough shit you are on the ass end of the cluster and the Nexus folks could only afford to send us-" She bantered and finished another Kett before looking up and seeing a deep-chocolate reddish brown colored Turian with stark white Cipritine Familia Notas.  
She just froze. 

**Eden Prime, Utopia System, Exodus Cluster, Milky Way - Shepards Memories**

Dark red skies and the thundering call of a reaper resonated through her. She knew when this was. This was craziness in a bottle. Eden Prime. Sovereign. Saren. She saw the silver gleaming plated Turian down below, a good two hundred meters away. Chatting with-  
No. Aiming his gun at the back of her partners head. Soon-to-be-teacher.  
"NIHLUS!!!"

**The Verakan, Present**

"Nih-..lus.." She stood still amidst a battlefield. And when he heard his name, so did he. She saw him look. A moment came in which everything just seemed to happen in slow-motion. She saw his face go from normal to confused, to recognition- then to shock.  
Then the carousel began spinning madly again and Shepard was hit on her head. Reflexes took over and she fought like she was in an Omega pit fight championship. With guns. With a low leg-sweep she pushed a Kett off balance and emptied three bullets in his skull before moving on to the next with brutal efficiency. She didn't stop to breathe. Confusion would overtake her if she did, no... Guilt- would kill her if she did.  
She had seen him fall.  
She had seen that bullet exit his skull.  
She had felt no Turian heartbeat. 

Even with the last Kett dead- her heart refused to stop rushing. "Chill chill" Kosta addressed Jaal. "He's a friend, I think-" He eyed Shepard who was quietly freaking out in a corner. Desperately trying to control her breathing. 

"How?" She spoke with a shaky voice as she forced herself to face him. No doubt existed. Turians rarely came in that particular shade of deep-red brown.  
"I saw him shoot you. I did not feel your heart beat when I got to you" She forced her emotions down, but it wasn't working very well. 

"That is a long story." The Turian spoke on sub harmonics she couldn't fathom. "It's good to see you, Shepard" He set his shotgun back in its holster. "You are quite the cavalry these days" He spread his mandibles in a Turian smile. "But this is hardly the time and place to talk" His viridian eyes hardened in worry. "I have over three hundred people hiding on the other side of this wall" He gestured over his back. "We originally managed to hold all of the labs but we took heavy casualties when they brought those war-dogs." He frowned.  
Shepard still felt his words slide by him- but then inhaled deep and shook her head. Later. Process this later.  
"We got you a way off. They have been ransacking the Paachero, but we got her up and running. We need to get there"  
"But the umbilical’s dead. It's venting atmo" Kosta said. "There should be two of them. Several members of the STG were with us before they tried to mount a rescue operation for the other laboratory wing." Nihlus spoke, when those viridian eyes met Shepards she knew his question before he spoke it.  
"No survivors save him" She gestured to Jaal who was watching the perimeter. "All dead." She swallowed hard.  
"SAM" She opened a comm's channel. "Second umbilical cable, the one Harper did not use, plan us a route please." She looked up to Nihlus. "Is your omnitool still working?"  
Nihlus shook his head. "Alright broadcast it to my omnitool, it helps if everyone knows where to go, in case we get separated."

Kosta stayed to guide over three hundred jumpy survivors behind Shepard and co. Having Nihlus on her six was something she forced herself not to think too much of. But when battle broke lose her mind stopped trying to drown her in memories and she fell into the comfortable rhythm of battle. Together they navigated down through the Kett ship and to the umbilical mount. She had Jaal and Kosta move in first, then their nervous survivors whilst she and Nihlus kept the rear. It forced them to forge through waves and waves of angry Kett. Side by side.  
"This or Husks?" Nihlus asked as a long terse silence fell.  
"This" Shepard spoke quietly and kept firing. Slowly, the both of them retreated as last ones through the umbilical. 

**The Paachero**  
"SAM, give me a headcount." She navigated through quiet deck after deck, trailing the nervous and dead scared people they had saved.  
"Approximately 87 thousand Salarian’s the Kett registered as expired in their logs."  
"When did you get access to the Kett's systems?" Shepard asked confused. "About sixteen minutes ago, whilst you were fighting."  
"I see-" She felt no joy. With almost 9 out of 10 Salarian’s dead, they had a very small population base. It was a horrifying truth. Of the about nine-hundred Nexus staff, three hundred in and about had survived the ordeal.  
"Harper, are you ready to jump?" Shepard asked as she undid the final mooring of the last umbilical tube. "Standing by captain." She spoke grim.  
"Coordinate with Kallo, get us out of here. I am leaving this to you from here on out." She sunk down the the plasticky white but green stained walls. All energy left her. Nihlus simply leaned to the wall.  
"You did everything you could Shepard." He spoke. "We all did. Don't blame yourse-" The ship lurched to the right and explosions resonated off to what Shepard guessed was the starboard side. "Shit shit shit-" She got up. "SAM, Harper are we being shot at?"  
"Yes commander- Yes Shepard." "Why aren't we at FTL?"  
"An issue has come with the drive core- it has destabilized-" Another explosion rocked the Paachero. "That knocked out the secondary drive system we are dead in the water!" Kirkland’s voice came in over the comm.  
"Shepard we have no choice-" Another impact. "We need to abandon ship."  
"TO WHERE?!" Shepard set out in a run to get to the bridge- but emergency doors cut her off. "The Tempest can't hold us all!" She heard Nihlus on her heels and forced a jammed door open. Then another- forcing her way through the Paachero until she was bathed in a deep green glow that cut off anything else she wanted to say.  
"Something is drawing power but not drawing power- I am no engineer it makes no sense but that is what my instruments tell me!" Kirkland yelled through the muted explosions. Nihlus had fallen silent with awe as well.  
They were at the center of the Ark. The most protected section.  
"If we can find whatever hidden thing is drawing power then I think I can balance the power draw for FTL but-"  
"Everyone this is the tempest, we will draw their fire, get into FTL" Kallo's shrill voice yelled. 

Shepard spoke on a quiet, small voice. "I have found our hidden power draw." She couldn't take her eyes off it in fact. "SAM, please undo whatever the STG did to hide this from the Kett."  
"How the hell did they even manage to hide something _this_ big?" Nihlus asked.

"Whatever you did commander it worked! Jumping to FTL in 3-"  
"2"  
Shepard felt the subtle shift ripple through her. And only then did she allow herself to sit down where she had stood.  
"Were at FTL, bound for arrival at the nexus in twelve hours commander" Harper spoke. "What is responsible for the power-draw?"  
"You'd best come down here and see it for yourself." Nihlus mused.  
"It is hope." Shepard spoke quietly.

 

Millions of eggs, clustered safely in a heavily secured tank. Salarian children, yet unborn hung suspended in the womb of the ship. "The STG- they hid this.. this sanctuary's power draw from the grid as not to let them fall prey to the Kett." Shepard spoke. "SAM- is the sanctuary compromised in any way?"  
"No. Although the Paachero's SAM unit has been removed. But this tank came with back-up protocols just in case of such an event happening"  
"Please help where you can. I don't think-" She stopped herself. "I need- some time to think" She closed her eyes. Then looked to Harper. "Can I trust you to handle getting us back to the Nexus?"  
"Leave it to me Commander"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo, shit went down, and in a hell of a lot faster time frame than I thought it would. Just a little interesting tibid- midway through the chapter Shep gets a breakdown in her room over her little Normandy SR2 model. I hadn't planned on bringing Garrus in yet, at all. At all.  
> But he just aimed his fucking mantis at my head and told me 'if you don't get off Shepards back right now, I will make you regret it.' Hence, a bit of Garrus POV.  
> Until I continued harrowing Shepard the day after. Hehehehe. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed! Explainations as to how the hell that turian we all know got his arse into Andromeda will come soon~!
> 
> p.s to clarify. I use the term CO as meaning Commanding officer. It is a bit confusing, but Shepard means her second in command with that. (perhaps I should change it). Also, our favourite Andromeda alien's tongue is partially official Shelesh, and partly my imagination. It isn't ment to be understood so don't worry about translating it~


	6. Aya

**The Paachero, mid FTL, Heleus cluster, Andromeda**

"Let her sleep." Nihlus spoke as he eyed the collapsed commander. She lay against the sanctuary that was keeping thousands of small Salarian's alive. Exhausted in more ways than one.  
"But she will miss the welcoming party" Kosta protested. The Paachero was twenty minutes out from its rendezvous with the Nexus.  
"You really think there will be a party?" Nihlus asked quietly. He lent against the bulkhead across the room. "We lost most of the adult Salarian population of the Paachero." Nihlus's larynxes spooled out a thin sound none of them could hear. "Plus a third of the people they took from the Nexus are dead as well.  
There won't be a party."

Kosta gazed silently. Despair flashed in his eyes. "But- we did all we could. Shouldn't stories end better when you give all you have?" He looked up to the spectre. The Turian just smiled dryly. "The one who taught you that was a naive optimist." A hard edge formed around his words. "Even today we got lucky." He gestured to the big tank. "How do you think this would have looked and smelled if the Kett had found it?"  
Kosta swallowed hard. He could find no words to answer the spectre with.  
"I do my best, every single day. I can count the days when my best was enough to solve a situation without losses on a single hand." His gaze turned inward. "And we got only three digits."  
"That is the reality of what we do."

"Communications to the Nexus have been repaired. Connection established" SAM announced over the internal ship announcement system. "ETA for arrival at the Nexus is fifteen minutes."  
"SAM" Nihlus spoke up. "Can you send Miss. Harper down here?" Nihlus looked up to the ceiling.  
"I want to keep her out of this mess" Nihlus eyed Shepard. "I think she and I can handle it instead."  
SAM took a moment before replying. "Very well. Relaying message."

Gladly enough, the almost Asari-esque Cora Harper and he saw eye to eye. "I think the tempest would be the safest spot for her." Nihlus gestured. Harper nodded. "I will contact Dr.T'Perro to tend to her. No one will block a medical transport on the docks." Nihlus nodded. "Appreciated."

**The Nexus, Tempest docking bay, Zeng He system, Heleus Cluster, Andromeda**

With a headache fierce enough to rival her N3-program epic hangover Shepard groaned to life. The room was dark and humming with the constant vibrations from a stationary mini-odyssey drive that happened to be her neighbor. She was in her cot. And not alone- she half jumped when a blue hand appeared - encased in an omnitool -.  
"Doc- You scare the death out of me." She groaned and forced her eyes closed against the light. "Well, you scared me as well when that emergency call came in so I will say that makes us even" The doctor grinned.  
Shepard just groaned. "I feel like I took three shots of ryncol in swift succession."  
"Well, considering the massive emotional and physical stresses you have been under these days, I'd almost advice you a drink." She mused. Shepard realized as she gazed around she was on an IV. "What?" She gazed at her hand.  
"You were shot at, and my scans told me you have been systematically keeping yourself from eating the amount of calories you need." The Asari frowned. "Not to mention the apparent mental stress you suffer from." She sighed.  
"Don't look so defensive" The doctor saw her react. "It is not a strange thing for someone who was brought to this galaxy against her will and drafted into a new war to exhibit signs of extreme mental stress. Ordinarily I would advice a long time of rest. But seeing the circumstances-"  
Shepard felt trouble and tried to get out of bed. Dr. Chakwas wasn't averse to knocking her out with medication if she didn't take her necessary sleep. At one point that had almost cost them the war once. "-easy Shepard!" The doctor frowned. "There is no need for you to be so panicked, I won't tranquilize you or anything-"  
Shepard sat up and was at the moment of taking out her IV's. She stared long and hard to the doctor.  
"Honestly!" She looked surprised and worried. "You had a doctor who stooped to such practices or something?"  
Shepards suspicious gaze caused the Asari doctor to switch from light amusement to honest disbelief and horror. "No certified doctor tranquilizes her patients."  
"Right. I have had plenty of experience with you certified doctors to tell me that is bullshit."  
"Dear Athame..." 

"How long was I out for?" She yawned. "Three days. Give or take a few hours." Dr.Lexi T'Perro sighed. The doc seemed to have trouble believing her history with doctors.  
A soft crackle of a helmet com, whilst she wasn't wearing a helmet at all, came in to her aural implants. "Shepard."  
"Yes Sam, go ahead" She rubbed her back.  
"I have an outstanding request from Nihlus Krykk for permission to come aboard the Tempest."  
Hearing his name spoken made her realize meeting him on the Kett cruiser hadn't just been some adrenaline addled dream. "Granted." She inhaled deep.  
"I will relay it to him. I am glad to see you recovering Shepard."  
"Me too" She sighed. 

Right about then the doctor arrived with a glass of water and a pill. "My Aspirin" Shepard smiled. "Come here you sweetie, take my headache away." With a deep gulp she swallowed it down. 

The doctor seemed to have something on her mind and waited for her to finish the glass.  
"I will go back to assist Dr.Carlyle and the Nexus medical staff on helping our refugees. A lot of people are itching to speak with you - but I used my medical authority to keep them off your back for today. Just stay on the tempest." She began to undo her IV. "It is safe to say your rescue operation and the return of the Paachero kicked up a lot of dust. Enjoy your rest whilst you can. And get two square meals in."  
Shepard just nodded. Somewhere she liked this doctor. And Kosta won some brownie points as well by bringing her one of the two square meals to her cabin without asking anything safe if she was okay.  
She didn't feel hungry until her eyes saw actual edible food instead of rations- and then her stomach began to take over and she ate like a rabid varren. Barely tasting the food. 

An hour later, she felt slightly more human. The food and drink had done her well. So she finally left her hidey-hole on the hunt for another cup of tea. The Tempest lay silent. Only Gil Brodie was at work testing out some modifications as they were idling, and Kallo was sleeping. He did not look well, she noted. She'd check up on him later. Losing so many people on the Paachero is a hard truth for him to swallow. If anything she could imagine his pain...  
Before her memories took over she turned ninety degrees and made her way up to the observation deck and war room. "Sam, can you dim the incoming light a bit" She asked softly. "Certainly" The Ai decreased the screen's luminosity. "Thanks" She sat down not on the main table, but amidst the unsorted goods stuffed to the edge of the room. She pulled her knees up and closed her eyes. Simply listening to the ship managed to calm her to a degree. She used to do this back in the Normandy too. Both the SR 1 and 2. 

"So this is your new hiding spot?" A flanged voice spoke up, waking her from a hazy nap. "You have reached the 'not so awake nor doing well' model of Shepard." She croaked. "Please leave a message after the beep. Beeeeep" She dropped her head on her knees.  
No message came, save the sounds of a chair being moved and a Turian sitting down.  
"Nice ship you got here" He hummed soft. "Got a bunk left?"  
Shepard chuckled soft, despite how she felt. "If your Turian arse is comfortable on a standard human bunk- be my guest, go and pick one."  
"Tch. Human beds make me feel like I went at it with a Krogan all night long."  
"So you went at it with a Krogan all night long?" Shepard did not lift her head but the sass was returning in her voice.  
"Wouldn't you like to know now?" Nihlus kept his tone light and teasing. "Come here and have a seat Shepard."  
"Did you suffer any crushed plates?" She moved slowly and groaning like an old lady. "Or do you now have a hoard of Krogan babies who call you daddie and didn't invite me to the baby shower?" She plopped herself down in an adjacent chair.  
"I see the war never made you lose your witty tongue" He was nursing a cup of Turian tea with a mischievous grin.  
"Nope, but it pretty much took everything else though" She clung on to a cup Nihlus handed her. "Did it take your dual chirality?" He nodded to the tea.  
Shepard sighed. "Not as far as I know- but if I go into anaphylactic shock it is your fault." She sipped it. Technically duel-chirality was not the proper term. She just had never had any kind of allergic reaction to dextro food. True dual-chirality was something that was still heavily researched as far as she knew. Food both Dextro's and Levo's could eat would be a -now- pan galactic breakthrough.  
After relishing in the foreign but sweet taste, she pushed herself to break the silence with a question that burned on her heart.  
"How did you get here Nihlus?" She asked quietly and serious. "I saw you die, I checked you for a pulse and found none." She shook her head and couldn’t look at him. Her damned hard-headedness in refusing to carry a sniper rifle when she should have had been the reason he had gotten shot through the head. And positively dead.  
"How are you still alive?"

Nihlus's mandibles flared in a brief smile. "That is thanks to you, and Saren." He answered.

Shepard felt a wave of surprise and disbelief crash into her guilt. "Come again?" She asked skeptically.  
"You called a med-evac." Nihlus sipped his tea without meeting her gaze. "Had you left me there we'd not be having tea right now. The Normandy picked me up. Chakwas tried to resuscitate me, and succeeded in part. She got my heart beating, only my neurons weren't firing"  
Shepard tried to swallow the dry log in her throat.  
"When the Normandy had picked up you and your team Anderson set on to getting me to the nearest Turian-equipped hospital." He sipped his tea.  
Shepard felt her guts ice cold. "I only woke up hours later." She realized. "How does Saren figure into all of this? He was indoctrinated already-" Shepard stopped half-way realizing Nihlus may not have a clue what she was about to rave on about. But if he was confused it did not show.  
"Saren had funds cleared." he gazed to her. "I was his pupil long before you were set to become mine Shepard."  
It all added up in her mind. Even if it was hard to believe she hadn't known a thing about it going down. Neither Anderson, nor Dr.Chakwas nor anyone else had ever told her.  
"I never knew" She spoke. "They never told me- I thought you were dead." She looked up to him with a sacred indignation. "You couldn't be allowed to. You had no clearance." Nihlus sighed. "And I wasn't exactly awake to let you know I was breathing."  
Shepard glared a hole into the table, but kept silent.  
"Your crew and CO weren't allowed to say a word. I recon they thought it was easier to just never mention it then to tell you there was something they cannot tell you." The Turian spooled a soft, re-assuring sub harmonic. It affected her gradually.  
"Still, I saw a bullet enter and exit your head. How did you get un-brain dead?"  
"I hear doctors and linguists spin in their graves" Nihlus grinned. Shepard hated that it actually worked.  
"I am told I was a pain in the neck, and my brain is pretty much twenty percent synthetics." He spread his mandibles in a joyless smirk. "But they got me back. After years of being knocked out and in a coma. When I came and was lucid for the first time, I learned I was in the care of an off grid rogue medical facility. Funded by my old teacher." He lent on his arm.  
"They kept me in the dark in the start. Much of my memories were shot to hell and back, and I was suspicious as when I was a little puer, but they fixed me. Not before I broke out and found out Saren played a fortune almost five decades ago. Or that they used to be a part of blackwater before going rogue." He grinned.  
"Blackwater. Turian special ops?" Shepard looked both amazed and apprehensive.  
"Yep. They put me through combat training, cognitive training- the works. All to bring me back as I was before getting my ass executed. "  
"It was there that I learned you had survived Eden Prime- for some reason I thought you hadn't made it." His mandibles flared short. "Then I figured out from sneaking out and hacking the station's comms that you found the biggest possible can of worms- as you humans say it- and went and opened it. The battle of the Citadel. Your 'death', and then your return to kicking Batarian ass and blowing up their relay. " He chuckled. "You have been damned busy."  
Shepard felt herself trapped in her memories as he glossed over some of the events of her life. "Yeah, too busy if you ask me." She sighed and finished her tea.

"Well. A few months later I was deemed healed up, and went to track down some loose ends. I travelled to Omega and Illium, then to Earth and finally to Palaven to figure out what I have missed the years I was out cold. Then the reapers knocked on our galactic door and the war began."  
"You fought?" Shepard stated more then asked.  
"I am still a spectre. I fought. I held off rows of Cerberus’s dogs on the Citadel after helping the evacuation on Palaven. Finally I ended up in operation Hammer on Earth. London."

"You were in _London_!" Shepard couldn't believe her ears. The Turian nodded. Granted Hammer had been a giant shit-show of chaos and death. But they had been so close- Sheppard’s thought were cut off as he spoke again.  
"I saw your final charge to the beam." His voice held a deep melancholy. "I was holding off reaper troops off your hind. I had no idea I'd find you there." He chuckled. "I froze like a damned fifteen year old at boot camp. "  
"Bloody hell." Shepard sighed. "I need something stronger then tea." That got the Turians approval. "How about we switch up all this heavy talk with a break out op? Word is they made a make-shift bar on the Nexus."  
"You are kidding. Just days ago that place was covered in blood." Shepard frowned but stood as he did. "You know us- brutally efficient when we need our drink after our shift." He grinned.  
"Bloody hell." She held a small smile. "And how would you do this break out OP exactly mister council spectre."  
"Simple"

**The Nexus, The Bar, Zeng He system, Heleus Cluster, Andromeda**

"You will so pay for this" She fumed. The conceitedly smirking Turian returned to their quiet corner-table with two drinks. "This is the only alcohol they have so no complaining."  
"You are so paying for this." Shepard hissed. "Sure, It's a date then" The Turian grinned and hummed with mischievous sub-harmonics. Right until Shepard landed a firm kick to his shin.  
"Owh- Fuck, easy Shepard easy" He still grinned. "You put a _bag_ over my head!"  
"Yes, and you let me, so stop grousing and drink your ale."  
"I hate Turians" She had to admit that point and grumbled. "You are definitely not made for the soldier carry, far too many spiky bits."  
"Shush and drink." He sipped his own. The music droned into her, and to be honest she had no strength nor will left to fight. She hadn't had it in the first place. She sighed and surrendered.  
"So how did you get your arse here, in Andromeda?"

"That's really not as complicated. When the war was over I heard you were dead." He blinked and took another swig. "-and that they were hiring security experts and former spectres for a one way trip to Andromeda. So I went."  
"I wish I had gotten the luxury of being dead." Shepard groaned. The alcohol hit a bit hard. She wished she hadn't spoken when she saw the Turian's scornful but concerned gaze. She had forgotten how damned overprotective they tended to get. Her heart stung.  
"They dragged me here, Nihlus" Shepard sighed. "I never had a choice. Nor a chance to say goodbye to my crew." Her gaze hardened.  
"Who did?" The spectre asked on a serious tone.  
"Miranda" Shepard spat the name out. "You do not know her, but we go back some years." Shepard leant forward, placing her elbows on her knees. "Fucking bitch." Tears beaded up. "She didn't even let me say goodbye- And now I am damned tipsy from a single glass because she decided to revive me a second god-damned time after I clearly stated, when she revived me the _first_ time that she can _never_ do that shit to me again.  
Yet here we fucking are!"

The bars patrons gazed to her, Shepard realized it after a few minutes and she sat down again. 

She plopped down in her chair fighting her tears and emotions. Nihlus let her be until she looked a little better. He placed another drink before her. She hadn't cared what it was and swallowed it down. It formed a warm pit in her stomach.  
Silence, for the first time in Andromeda, did not feel awkward. The gentle din of bad techno-music and speaking patrons washed over her and slowly.  
"You shouldn'tve died you know? Cause hell I could have used your help getting through that shitstorm back before the war." She knew she was rambling, but hadn't the energy to care to make herself stop. "Dealing with Saren's Sovereign and all this shit show of horrors." She inhaled deep and buried her forehead into her underarm. Yep, definitely drunk.  
If Nihlus spoke, she did not hear it. All she could pick up was sub harmonics she couldn't read.  
"They made me a fuckin' spectre after I got you killed. To hunt down the one who had put the bullet in your head. I never again left my armory without a sniper rifle since Eden Prime." She looked up unsteady, half crying and definitely hammered as she rose her hand and asked for another drink, knocking it back like they had taught her to in the alliance.  
"You blame yourself?" Nihlus asked, then sipped his third.  
"Of course I do you asshole!" She slurred her speech. "Had I brought the damned rifle Anderson told me to bring I'd have been able to keep Saren from shooting your brains out."  
Nihlus shook his head. "You worry over the strangest shit when hammered Shepard." He sighed. "I think you had enough" He grinned a turian smirk and stole her glass from her. She protested by trying to grab it with the coordination of a drunk.  
"Fuhk you Nihlus" She pulled her mean face, causing the liquor-tolerant Turian to shake his head with a smirk. "Pathetic Shepard." He forced her up her legs and shored her up so she could swing her limbs in a walking manner, taking her back to the Tempest. 

When she was out and asleep, brought back to her cabin by a frowning doctor T'Perro, Nihlus went and did some digging.  
Just who exactly was this 'Miranda'? 

**The Nexus, Main Operations center**

Dealing with Directors Tann and Addison was in itself no easy feat for Shepard. Dealing with them, whilst hung over. Was a draconian feat. She blocked out whatever they said and took deep, slow breaths.  
"Are you understanding me, Pathfinder?" Tann spoke with a voice she expected to snap any moment now.  
"Yep."  
"Then what did I say?"  
Owh shit. Eum. "That I need to do better" Shepard gazed to the Salarian to see how well that guess panned out. Her head began to complain already.  
"No." Tann spoke. "Others may say that. But as indicated by the Tempest's field logs, there was little else that you could have approached differently."  
She blinked surprised.  
"I _said_ -" There went her brief moment of liking him. He was such a school-teacher with that finger of his always up in the air. "- that we have a crisis on our hands. Now more than before, with so many young Salarian offspring waiting to be born. The removal of the SAM-node from the Paachero activated the maturation cycle. We cannot reverse this."  
Somewhere in Shepards hurting head the light went on.  
"We are going to have a hell of a lot of baby Salarians on the Nexus in roughly seven months." Mordin's singing had ingrained many science facts into her brain. Including the gestation time of Salarian eggs.  
"Five, to be precise" Tann spoke. "..." Shepard went over the picture in her mind. Everyone would be caring for triplets. If not more. Not to mention food and medical provisions.  
"Not to mention, the Leusinia and the Natanus are still unheard of and assumed missing. With how the Paachero was found, we need to keep in mind they may as well be stranded somewhere in Heleus." Tann closed his eyes.  
"You are our only pathfinder. Without colonies to provide raw materials, food and living room we will starve, Shepard." The Salarian had eased his voice a bit. "If you do not find us colony sites, even if they are less then desirable, we will all die."  
Shepard's headache threatened to dial up to an eleven as she considered what he told her. "I am a soldier, Director Tann" She met his gaze. I was never trained to found colonies.  
"Hence, I have a proposal. Considering the unique circumstances surrounding your being named pathfinder, and your apparent lack of training. We have done some limited scouting when the Nexus arrived in Heleus. I am willing to lend you a group of experts to pour over this data with your SAM. Originally a pathfinder would visit and chart Heleus's systems. But seen we have more pressing matters with our two missing arks and the Kett, not to mention the scourge, this seems a more prudent solution.  
When this team discovers a hit- a remotely suitable world, it will be your responsibility to head there and make it as livable as possible and expedite the founding of colonies.  
You are passionate about saving lives in a fire fight. If you become passionate about finding us colony settlements. Even if it is only one, on a less than ideal planet, you will be saving hundreds of thousands of lives, Shepard."  
Shepard's head threatened to kill her, but she nodded. Tann managed to be quite an inspiring speaker.  
"Good. Thank you." Tann folded his hands. "I wish there would be a way for me to make it even easier. But until the other arks are accounted for you are all we have."

That, drew her attention. "Is there no word, no witness statement from the survivors from the Paachero or anyone else on the Kett cruiser indicating the possible arrival of the Natanus or the Leusinia?"  
"None yet. But we are still looking" Tann spoke. Damn. If one of the other arks arrived she'd at the very least have some help managing things she never studied for like hunting planets and making them livable. Perhaps she'd even be relieved of the duty entirely- but where would she go then? She wondered. She'd have to give up the Tempest. And she was just starting to like the nimble little ship.  
Her headache kept her from digging further. "Anything else Director?"  
"No, but take some rest you are not looking good."  
"Right, will do, thank you" Shepard fled and breathed relieved only when she was back amongst the masses.  
"I am never drinking with a Turian again." She groaned. "Don't be so final on that" Kandros grinned as he worked away on his terminal.  
"Smartass" Shepard groaned. "Stupid Turians with their stupidly high alcohol tolerance." Kandros just chuckled and worked on. 

**The Nexus, The commons**

"Jaal" Shepard felt better after a triple aspirin and some cold water. "What do you think of the Nexus?" She smiled.  
"It is..." He seemed to think. Then turned to look at her from staring out over the railing he hung on. "Your people are curious. Overly so." He frowned.  
Shepard felt alarm settle in. Her being out of consciousness had kept her from introducing Jaal in an orderly fashion. Slowly one by one things began to make sense. Like the damned elated atmosphere on the Nexus, alongside the depression. Hope amidst despair.  
"Have they treated you right?" She asked serious, shoving her headache to the background.  
"They are curious, but have not shown intentional disrespect yet." He looked around. "The Nexus is big. Your species needs a lot of room."  
"Not really.." Shepard felt slightly re-assured. "We live in small places, we just like to build big. This place is intended to function as our central seat of government when we have colonies."  
Jaal looked at her again. "They told me you are from the Milky-Way galaxy. That you travelled to dark space to find a new home. Is this correct" He eyed her with suspicion. "It is. We are a curious people." His question made her wonder why the Initiative even came to be. "If you are worried we hide an invasion force, we are not. Not much of our force is left anymore."  
Jaal looked taken aback for a moment before schooling his face back to neutral. "You had an invasion force?"  
"No." Shepard shook her head realizing how she had come across. "We had fleets yes. Fleets meant to protect ourselves. But they were wiped out in the reaper war, mostly. "  
"The reaper war?" Jaal inquired.  
"A species of sapient machines we called reapers tried to ... annihilate us." This was easier then explaining the fine mechanics of reaper procreation.  
"We fought them off, but you cannot call it a victory." She gazed out over the Nexus's greenery. "I watched my mother ram her ship into one of those monstrosities before she detonated it."  
Jaal was gazing to her, then looked away. "She was brave."  
"That she was Jaal." Shepard sighed soft.  
"Listen. Soon we will ship out again. I need to find a planet for our people to settle or we will starve. But before I go off and try to manage that. Is there anywhere I can take you to?"  
He seemed to consider that. "Yes. If your superiors will let me go." He added the last sentence with a bitter edge.  
"You are no prisoner here Jaal." She frowned. "If anyone tells you otherwise I will convince them of the truth. We may be absolutely fascinated with you. We have never seen an Angara before, much less had one on the Nexus with us, but our curiosity may never bind you."  
He looked at her with an expression she couldn't identify. "You are different."  
"Different from who?" Shepard wondered.  
"The humans I know who live on Kedara."  
"Kedara?" Shepard wondered. "Sam?" She asked. "A pirate haven overtaken by exiles."  
"Kedara belongs to the Angara" Jaal spoke with a darkened look. "The vesagara have overtaken it."  
"Sorry, my translator did not quite catch that. vesagara?" Shepard asked.  
Jaal seemed to think. "Exiles.. those with torn roots." He gestured in a mild frustration. "Vesagara"  
Enough for her to get the drift. "Humans, Asari" She pointed to an Asari. "Salarian, Krogan?"  
"Milky way species" Jaal confirmed. "They turned it into a pirate port." Shepard felt her curiosity rise. "Would you mind sharing its coordinates with me?"  
"Yes" Jaal stood and faced her. "I have fought with you. But those" He gestured. "And your initiative. I cannot trust their intentions on only your word."  
"The Angara have suffered enough on the hands of outsiders." Emotion brimmed in his eyes. A fierce drive to protect. A look Shepard knew intimately.  
"Alright" She nodded. "That is fair. But at least give us a chance to prove our intent, and give me a chance to prove mine, and my teams." she regarded the Angaran.  
Jaal did not know what to do with that directly. "Do you speak for your initiative?" He asked.  
Shepard took a moment to make sure. But first contact and initial diplomacy, she had read, were part of the role of pathfinder. "I do until formal relations between our people are established."  
Jaal looked at her in a way most... comically? "Re-phrase that, please" He spoke trying to keep his expressions in check.  
"Euhm.. formal- er. Until we exchange diplomats."  
"Ah, well." He regarded her again. "Then I have the test you wished to receive." Shepard blinked. That was fast.  
"I will guide you to my home-world. But only if you will not monitor our course and heading. Aya's secrecy has kept us safe for generations. I will not be the one to compromise it."  
Shepard thought a moment. But not whether to accept or not, but rather how to go about keeping their automated systems from recording anything. She nodded slow. "Alright. Give me and Sam some time to find a way to fool our equipment." Jaal nodded with his head in a side-ways slant.  
So it was settled. Shepard would get to see the Angara home-world and make proper first contact. And here she had been sleeping through her diplomacy classes of her N programme.  
Only when she was laying down for the night on the Tempest did she realize the extent of trust he had given her. He likely had no way to check if she was recording Aya's coordinates or not. But as she lay thinking she realized - there is a hell of a lot you can learn about a person when you are stuck with them in a firefight. That had given her a unique insight into Jaal. He was a soldier through and through. But the window had worked both ways. He had seen into her as well. She wondered what he had seen to trust her with this.  
'Bloody hell I am so not ready for this.' 

 

 **London FCC, Earth, Sol System, Local cluster, Milky way; After the reaper war**  
The four male's fell down, dead or at least wounded enough not to get up again. In the center of the room stood an angry Turian with the gun that killed them.  
"Just _what_ exactly are you trying Miranda?" The sniper bristled. He was cold, hungry, infuriated by frustratingly slow bureaucratic, and most of all absolutely done with Miranda's bullshit.  
"Sending out goons to tranq me when things don't go your way?! Tell me where she is or I will come over and put a bullet through your brain personally, and you know my aim." He walked over to where his headset showed him the camera was and drew his M-15 Vindicator and aimed it squarely at the little bug.  
"Really Vakarian, who do you think you are fooling" Miranda spoke in every color of 'unimpressed and not having time for this.'  
"For your own safety it is best you do not know. She is safe." She sounded cold through the static. "Sign the form and all this-" He guessed she meant the luring him to an abandoned room in the wreck that was London post-war and sending goons with stun guns after him. "-won't be necessary anymore."  
"You can stuff that form up your ass Miranda" He checked the process on the trace he had placed on the comline. It was taking damned long.  
"Eloquent, Vakarian." She cut the line.  
"Damn it-" He turned around and paced. Damn it and damn her and damned this war and this spirits damned crash! Damn getting stuck on Luna because no damned transport was available!  
He couldn't get to her. She had been lying in a field hospital, right here in London whilst his sorry ass was stuck on the damned moon. He could pick out London by staring at the skies for too much. And whilst he was sitting on his hands orbiting earth she was down there- reportedly _alive_ after having fallen down from the crucible. And he simply couldn't _get_ to her!  
In a fit of pure frustration, he tore his visor from his head when it had failed to trace the commline. Again.  
This dance had been going on for far too long. Miranda went on and on about some kind of damned form he had to sign without giving anything of a reason. A one way ticket to fucking Andromeda!  
His Shepard was _here_. In the milky way. Not to say he had had more than enough adventure for a lifetime dealing with the reapers. They had decided to go off the radar together in the Normandy and hold a nice long beach holiday on some far-off terminus tropical planet.  
And she wanted him to jump galaxies and leave Shepard behind. Hell no.

But when he saw his now broken Kuwashii visor he felt a jab of regret. As he picked it out of the rubble he gazed to the rim where the names of his old Omega squad were engraved. When that ordeal had ended, and his revenge averted Shepard had stolen his Visor and had engraved the names of the crew alongside with those of his squad.  
He ghosted with his talon over her name as he sat down amidst the rubble.  
"Where are you?..."

—

"Garrus" A careful female voice spoke. Gruffly he turned around. "Liara?" He rose a brow plate but wasn't cheering. Miranda hadn't been the only one who had suspiciously fallen out of contact after the end of the war. Liara had her work as the broker, but still. Communication was the brokers lifeline.  
"Are you still looking for her?"  
"You aren't?" He snided.  
Liara's silence was telling. "I think you should sign that form, Garrus..." She spoke quietly.  
"...you know where she is." The Turian spoke with his back to her, had she been able to hear she'd find nothing but hostility and betrayal. He was done being pushed around.  
"Garrus."  
"You know where she is." He turned around and stepped into her space. To Liara's credit she did not back out.  
"I do." She looked up, gone was the meek Liara, enter the broker. "And that is why I tell you to listen to Miranda."  
"Why should I do anything either of you two say?! No- you are going to tell me where you have Shepard, right, now." Where he had lost his inner vigilante after the betrayal at Omega, here in London he had found it again.  
"Garrus." Liara gazed up with a force he didn't remember her having when they first met in Therum. "Do you even know what the Initiative is?" She snapped back on a low, cool manner.  
"A fucking flight of fancy, as she'd put it." His tone did not soften in the least.

"Well Shepard is on that 'flight of fucking fancy', Garrus." Liara spoke with a perfectly measured level of attitude mixed with determination.  
The shock was evident on the Turian. The silence long. "She is on a ship towards Andromeda?!" Disbelief colored his voice.  
"Yes" Liara softened her voice. "And she will need you there."  
Stunned, Garrus stepped back. 

**Ark Natanus, telemetry offline, navigational array offline.; Before the arrival of the Hyperion.**  
When he woke there was no bright lights, as had been said there would be in the glossy brochure of the initiative. Nor a peaceful awakening, nor the promised medical evaluation or cup of Turian coffee.  
No there was darkness, alarms in the distance, and a group of three who hurried him out of his pod and let him regain consciousness in a small corridor with nothing but an omnitool for a light source.  
"What the-.." He croaked, and was almost bottle-fed a flask of water. "We don't have long. Vakarian, right? Veteran fighter, sniper? Some big guy in the war?" Another turian asked.  
"nice life recap-" He coughed and groaned. "This is not what the brochures said it would be like." He spoke on a light sarcasm. Then rolled his shoulders.  
"What the hell is going on?"  
"Well first off" A younger Turian spoke, who kept guard. "Welcome to Andromeda. To answer your question, we're being boarded by bony aliens."  
The world was still spinning, but Garrus tried to focus. "We are losing men by the day and the sons of bitches keep coming, so we have no alternative but to wake the fighters."

Hours later, he had gotten to see every face of every awake turian, and a few dead Turians. They were with thirty seven. And the aliens had drop ships sailing into the ark every few hours. Their pathfinder was out grabbing supplies- because they were getting low on ammunition, but it was a big ship to crew with so little people. Teams were on foot to lock up sections they couldn't defend. They had forgone the bridge and used the ark's Ai to route the commands to the cryo bay, where they were encamped.  
But for being so organized. They were still losing. Losing men, losing supplies, and being pushed back more and more with every new wave of the aliens.  
When three days since waking up- word came in that their pathfinder had died near the engineering section, and their Ai had gotten critically damaged mid-transfer of pathfinder codes- morale collapsed.  
Command had fallen to a young Turian spectre who had just lost his bond mate. Avitus Rix. Chaos descended amidst the Turian ranks.  
Until Garrus remembered he really wasn't a good turian. 

"Listen up." He stood holding his mantis amidst the men who were sitting and barely speaking. "Did you all somehow forgot what you were taught at damn boot camp? The only time you see a Turian's back is when he is dead." He eyed them. Most were young- they had fought in the reaper war.  
"We have taken down bigger monstrosities then these aliens. And just because we lost our leader, doesn't mean we collapse." He eyed Avitus. "We have a new pathfinder now. Even if his codes aren't transferred all the way and our SAM is broken." He hauled the spectre off his feet. "I have someone I need to find in this damned galaxy and I’ll be damned if I end up dying here to some aliens."  
"Now some may call this insubordination, but since we are all equally eager to keep living, and even more - keep them-" He pointed up towards the cryo wards. "-living. We need to get off our asses. And until Avitus is done mourning his bond mate, I'll stand in to do just that. I am going out there to grab our pathfinders body and the supplies he was trying to bring. Who is with me?" He rose his rifle.  
As many of the crew found their feet, Garrus felt his chest ache. This was going to be Omega all over again, wasn't it?

 **The Tempest Docks, The Nexus, Zeng He system, Heleus Cluster, Andromeda**  
"What are you?..." Shepard lifted a brow and stood with crossed arms. "Well- I revised my proposal. I am coming with you but I bring my own bunk. You won't have use of me if I am as stiff as a hundred year old senux."  
Shepard gazed to the Turian with a bed over his shoulder and a shotgun under his arm.  
"You are certain? With being under my command? I have already too many people onboard fighting me for that, I cannot use one more."  
"Shepard I am Turian." Nihlus eyed her.  
"I know. That is exactly why I am asking." She stared. It caused the spectre to chuckle. "I will find myself a spot to sleep." And walked off.  
Shepard was frustrated, but not enough to call him back. "Bloody Turians." She sighed, but was happy under the gruff posing. He was familiar, even if they had only worked together for one, now two missions. Plus he had a good aim.  
"Sam" She called looking up and walked towards the Tempest bridge. "Amend the ships record please, new crew member stated as Nihlus Krykk, promote him to the exclusive position reserved for him named 'Asshole'. B-Level clearance"  
"Will do Shepard."  
"I heard that." A turian voice loaded with amused sub vocals resonated from below deck.  
"Good" Shepard answered. "I will regret this." She sighed.

"Kallo- how long until our pre-flight check is done and the Nexus will let us leave?" She still couldn't help looking up as if hoping to find EDI there somehow.  
"Approximately forty-five minutes Commander Shepard."  
"Alright, call the general alert for all a boards in 30 minutes." She inhaled deep. Ready or not it was time.

As she exited the tempest's airlocks and walked onto the catwalk leading her to the docks she saw the one she needed staring out into space as usual. "Sam, how are our preparations coming along?"  
"Sufficiently Shepard, although I admit attempting to keep the Nexus in the dark is an interesting choice."  
"Better report a happy sensor glitch then to make them doubt me even more" Shepard sighed and walked to the Angara.  
"Ready for your trip home Jaal?" She joined him at the railing.  
"Are you?" He asked. "You were lucky last time, not to have run into the scourge- as your people call it-"  
"Okay Jaal, you need to work on not sounding so ominous, but thanks for the warning." She frowned. The scourge was something they absolutely did not understand, despite literally tripping over it. Dark energy, or something of the likes. "Are you not at least a bit eager to go home Jaal?" She asked and looked sideways to him.  
Disturbed by that question he closed his expression. "Aya's trouble are not yours commander."  
Shepard sighed. "You are a beacon of positivity Jaal." Was she frightful of playing diplomat? Absolutely. She wasn't looking forward to that part.  
Yet her comment had gotten Jaal to react. He turned to her somewhat. And if body language was universal that was a good thing.  
"The Kett have been our enemy for a long time commander. As much as I appreciated your rescue. Whether you and your initiative can be trusted is not a decision I am allowed to take."  
"I know" Shepard gazed towards the stars. "That is up to your government. But what do you think, Jaal?" Shepard didn't meet his eyes. "You have seen the Nexus, met our people- we fought Kett together. Was I looking particularly friendly with them?" She tossed him a look.  
It won his pause for a moment. "... no. I trust you hate the Kett as much as I." He looked back towards the stars again. "That ship held many of your dead."  
Shepard breathed deep.  
"...that. Why do you do that?" He asked. His eyes meeting hers with a question.  
"What- breathing?"  
"No- the huffing."  
"Oh-" Shepard found a small smile. "It's usually a sign of being troubled in thought, or of tiredness. Or both."  
"I see... with the Angara it carries a different meaning. It is an expression of dissent."  
"Oh-" Shepard looked surprised. "Sorry if I offended" She chuckled. "I am troubled and tired a lot"  
Jaal shook his head gentle, and for the first time she saw him soften in his gaze. "No harm is done. Such differences are to be expected between new species."  
Shepard chuckled. "You can say that again. When we joined the stage in our galaxy- we pretty much managed to offend everyone. Save perhaps the Hanar." She snickered.  
"You are with many species?" Jaal asked, and Shepard nodded, bringing up her omnitool. "I think we have just enough. Come" She guided Jaal off the docks and onto the alien welcoming centre they were still setting up. Thirty minutes wasn't much- but Jaal getting to see them face to face was worth running short on time.  
Every milky way species was represented in this small exhibition area. From Krogan to Raloy and from the elegant Asari to the monstrous Leviathan's and their creations. The reapers.  
Especially the war footage caught his eye. "You fought monstrosities over 40 elya high?" He asked with an incredulousness to his eyes. Shepard grinned, for a moment it was more pride then sadness, but only a moment.  
"We did. I told you we once had a military fleet? Come- we need to get back to the Tempest."  
"When you have time, tell me more of this reaper war of yours." "Sure" Shepard inhaled deep.  
The almost apologetic look on Jaal's face struck a chord with her. "Don't worry. I will bring enough beer and we can swap stories. But for now- SAM can you ask the museum curator for a copy of the war achieves and have it transferred to the tempest?"  
"Of course commander."  
"Thank you" She smiled gentle. Jaal still looked differently at her then he had before. With a keen interest. "You have lost people to this war?" He asked as they approached the docks.  
The question almost made her unable to take another step, but she bullied through the waves of pain she had never had the chance of dealing with. No matter if they were six hundred years old.  
Only when they were in the Tempest's airlock did she answer. "I lost my mother." Jaal seemed to recall. "I remember, you told me this on the Kett cruiser." Shepard nodded. But that hadn't been her only loss in this war.  
"I lost dear friends. Mordin Solus, a brilliant scientist who gave up his life to save an entire species from death. And I lost Legion. A member of a synthetic gestalt consciousness that gained his identity whilst assisting me and my crew in defeating the reapers. He sacrificed himself so all Geth would get a template from which to build their own identity."  
"Forgive me" Jaal spoke as the decon cycle ended and Shepard got underway to the bridge. "I believe my translator broke in the middle of that sentence. But even if I do not entirely comprehend what this 'Legion' was, his sacrifice was noble. As was your scientists"  
Shepard gazed to him a while before nodding slowly. "Thank you. It won't help them anymore. But it helps me in understanding." She walked up to her helmsmen and laid her hand on his shoulder.  
"Everyone is aboard commander." He pulled a quirky grin.  
"Good, do we have departure clearance?" "Affirmative" "Then take us out nice and slow."  
"Aye commander" Kallo spoke up and deftly his hands shot over his haptic interface.

"SAM open a ship wide commlink please." "Open" Sam replied simply. The bridge grew silent with expectance as Shepard breathed in deep and formed her words.

"This is Commander Shepard speaking. Today we are going out on a new mission. A mission about earning the trust of a species that has been born here in Heleus. It will be our job to show them that although we are not without fault. We are here with good intentions." She walked to the navigation console.  
"We are to make first contact, and make sure we make it properly. To this extent- added measures will be taken as not to make this go the way of the Yagh."  
"Jaal will show us to Aya, the Angaran home world. Under the condition that no navigational logs are kept. The location of Aya is to remain a secret. We cannot know, and our equipment cannot know. And most of all, the Nexus will not know. Anyone with questions about this can come to me. If anyone is found logging Aya's position, they will be thrown into the brig and charged with 'actively sabotaging Initiative diplomatic efforts'." She breathed deep.  
"We need allies. Not enemies.  
Shepard out." She rubbed her forehead. "SAM initiate our sensor flooding and set our onboard cartographic unit on standby."  
"Proceeding." Sam notified her. "Sensors overloaded." A moment later she heard something wind down somewhere. "Cartographic unit on standby. We are ready to proceed."

Shepard called up the console and gestured Jaal over. "This is our navigation array. If you give us a course and a heading Kallo will do the rest." She stepped back and moved to the pilot.  
"Kallo, what is your experience with the scourge?"  
"Close and frequent" The pilot spoke. "Good. Expect a lot of it."  
"Will do. Ready for navigational course and heading"

And with that, Shepard called Suvi and left the bridge to the two of them to lead them onto new lands to meet a new people.

**Ark Natanus, telemetry offline, navigational array offline. One month later.**

"Keep your wits about you and pick your targets. Just like boot camp taught you." Garrus's voice resonated between the bulkheads more than loud enough to reach over the gunfire. "The assholes have the advantage in numbers but not in training and definitely not in experience." He steadied his six hundred year old mantis and took the shot straight through a bony alien's head. "Artus switch covers- Corvex cover him." He took aim for the head of one of the alien leaders and let a silent cry of victory when he saw it explode. Payback for his damned side-plate that one had cracked several days ago.  
"Commander! They are coming from the port vent shafts-!" A young scout who really was a xeno-biologist came running. They had been forced to wake more and more of their sleeping passengers. This kid at least had the kind of solid aim necessary for surviving here. "All forces, tactical retreat to bulkhead four hundred and seven." He issued on his comms. "Staged retreat- just like we practiced."  
"With mines?" A younger corporal asked. "Yes, with mines we want to blow a hole in the side of our hull. "He groaned. "I already told you this Jaxis, when we are in proximity of the hull we use thermal charges."  
Mid maneuver an incoming commline resonated through his skull. "Avitus here, why are you falling back Vakarian?"  
"Because they are flanking us from the side. Our sappers didn't get the vent shafts sealed in time."  
"We cannot afford to lose more ground Vakarian-" Avitus hissed. "And we can afford to lose more lives?" Garrus paused moving and whispered into his com now. "Because that is what you are asking."  
"Damn it Vakarian can't you just do as I say?"  
"Listen. We can take back these bulkheads in the coming hours. We cannot bring our dead back to life" He spoke on a quietly angry tone. "The entire goal of this trip is to bring a hundred thousand Turians to this damned galaxy. Not to have them die protecting bulkheads."  
"We need to _win_ this war Garrus! This has been ongoing for months!" Avitus snapped back.  
"I agree we need to win." Garrus made sure he was the last one out and sealed the bulkhead. "But not at every damned cost. We can and _are_ outsmarting them at almost every turn now. Losing our patience will give them a chance to push us for the area that is really important. Our cryo-bays." Garrus explained with a vigor he had hoped not to need any more since the end of the reaper war.  
"If we chance our asses on a suicide run to just clean ship -again- we will lose people. And we risk losing _everything_."  
"Damn it Vakarian!" Despair emanated from Avitus's voice. "I-.. Fine-" He keened for a moment before Garrus heard the former spectre strangle it.  
Garrus sighed as the connection closed and he did a quick headcount. Then he called in their team of sappers to seal the bulkhead before taking his team back.  
The situation on the Natanus was dire. Even more so because Avitus Rix, their new pathfinder and former spectre had assumed command, but for some reason every turian on the Natanus still gravitated to him for leadership instead of the pathfinder. Garrus had tried to 'fix' the chain of command by putting himself under Avitus's command, and trying to do as he asked where he could. But the former spectre had a tendency to make ill- vengeance inspired decisions that didn't account for his people's safety very much.  
Avitus sought revenge, and wanted to wipe the aliens off their ark. But Garrus knew it was a proven thing that doing so led to losing far too many people and supplies. He had kept a course of misdirection and hit and run to exhaust the aliens and learn what made them tick. That’s how he knew she would have done this.  
That is how he did it once before. Not that those results were too encouraging- Omega still hung over him like a ghost. But he had learned from his failures there. He wouldn't fail his team again.  
Even if that meant being a bad turian. Hell had he not always been that?  
He knew he had done the right thing when he watched the weary crew settle down and scrounge up ration bars.  
"You really think we are going to make this?" A more rugged soldier asked. He was a professor at astro-physics, Garrus remembered.  
"We will. I got someone to find and I won't let these aliens stop me from doing exactly that. I don't care how long it takes but we will find a way to get out of this mess. We kicked reaper ass."  
"We had help with that, you know?" The dry scientist remarked.  
"We did" Garrus chuckled but it was almost joyless. Quietly he took his visor off and held it in his talons. The crude fixes he had made to it before departing had held through a six-hundred year or so journey, and over a month of extensive fire fights.  
"Just a warning." The torin spoke. "This split of authority will produce problems later on. No matter how much you try to avoid it."  
"I know." Garrus sighed. 

**The Tempest, mid FTL, Heleus Cluster, Andromeda**

"Commander-" The term's use on her had been spreading. Even though she was technically no commander nor anything else anymore. Nothing but Pathfinder. But that fact didn't seem to stop anyone from still calling her that. She couldn't find it in her to complain about it. It sure as hell beat 'pathfinder'.  
"Yes Brodie?" She looked up. "Just Gil will do m'am" The sunny male grinned. "Alright, yes Gil" She yawned and pushed the data pad away from her.  
"Not that I don't appreciate your company but- what are you doing here m'am? This is the engineering section."  
"Promise you won't laugh" Shepard spoke dry and suddenly desired coffee.  
"I'll try" Gil chuckled.  
"I am here because the humming of the engine helps me think. Used to do the same on the Normandy. Sorry to say it but she still sounds better"  
"Hah- I bet she does-" Gil grinned but it wasn't mocking. "Tantalus drive core of Turian design. That frigate is a beauty to behold."  
"Yes- she is" Shepard sunk into thoughts. Then got herself out before she sunk too deep. "I also happen to be brushing up on pathfinder diplomatic protocols." She yawned again, making Gil do the same.  
"Exciting reading material I bet"  
"Very" She grumped half-heartedly. 

"Your room sits right next to the engine, you know that right?"  
Shepard groaned and lent with her head on her arm. "I know." Then sighed.  
"Alright, I won't pester. We all got troubles." He smiled with a hint of compassion. "You're quiet and don't drink or smoke so you are welcome to camp here." He chuckled.  
"And as for Aya- I am sure you will do just fine. Perhaps not 'by the book' fine. But 'what counts is the results' -fine.'"  
That honestly got her to smile. "Thanks Gil. But prepare to jump to FTL when it doesn't all the same" She got a mischievous grin over her lips.  
"Aye m'am" The engineer laughed.

**The Tempest, in high orbit over Aya, Onaon system, Heleus Cluster, Andromeda**

"Jaal" Shepard spoke quietly as she stood beside him on the bridge, gazing down to the planet below. "Correct me if I am wrong- but you said Aya was a tropical world, no?"  
"I did." Jaal sounded tense.  
"This does not look like a tropical world." Shepard looked up to him. "Would your people object to us scanning their planet?"  
Quietly the Angara shook his head. "Aya is not right. No one is answering my hails."  
"The atmosphere looks polluted" Kallo added in with a worried tint on his voice. "I see a lot of fire down there."  
"Wildfires are normal on Aya." Jaal spoke, but the tone at which he had spoken indicated more.  
"...but this many-"  
"Suvi" Shepard opened a comm. "Come to the bridge please, we need eyes on to figure out what is wrong with the planet." Shepard shifted her weight from leg to leg.  
"Right away-" Suvi spoke as she arrived and took her seat. "I am reading high concentrations of Co2 and Hydrogen Cyanide. The trend is consistent with the extensive wildfires that are being fed by a complicated storm system over the equator band. I am reading some very unusual materials in this smoke commander" Suvi spoke on as she deftly typed on her haptic interface. "Heavy metals and synthetic compounds- And get this commander-" She spoke with the wonder in her voice rising. "They have the same alien structure on their planet that habitat seven had, and it lies at the heart of this storm and sea of flames-"  
"Suvi-" Shepard worried- but didn't get the chance to do so for long.  
"The Moshae!" The Angara grasped the navigational controls. "Tell me do you read other Angara near her or do you see functioning shuttlecrafts near her position?"  
Suvi looked stunned a moment, but then gazed to Shepard who nodded. "Do as he says Suvi"  
The young brilliant scientist nodded and got to work, but before a silence could fall Kallo spoke up. "We are and have been receiving communications-" He frowned. "We have, they have received our hail?" Jaal turned to the Salarian. "Nothing indicates they did" Kallo spoke. "I am mainly receiving signals that are bouncing back and forth in Aya's atmosphere due to the interference of the heavy metals in the air. Nothing seems to have been aimed at us."  
"Put it through" Jaal commanded more then asked. "Sam" Shepard spoke up. "Try and clear up the communications for us please."  
A jittery and broken mass of voices was broadcasted through the bridge comm. Rife with static, and over a thousand voices speaking at the same time made singling one out difficult. But none sounded very peaceful.  
"I am reading no active power sources in a hundred kilometer range around the alien structure." Suvi reported. "The pollution of the smoke is likely keeping all airborne vehicles grounded. Ground transport scans are inconclusive, too much interference."  
"Damn- we cannot afford to lose the Moshae-" Jaal looked down.  
"Kallo try and single out single broadcasts from the jumble of voices with SAM, Suvi do a deep scan of that alien building and compare notes with the scans we have from Habitat 7. Look for similarities. And see if it is the core of this damned fiery inferno. Word was that Alec suspected the damn thing on Habitat 7 to be some sort of alien climate control."  
"Aye" Suvi was already working.  
"Jaal, with me." Shepard took the man away from the bridge and towards the bottom rec-room.  
"Something tells me you want to jump down there to save this 'Moshae' Who is she?"  
"The paragon of Angara culture" Jaal paced. She had struck bulls eye on him wanting to go down to the planet. "She is our leader Shepard" He stopped pacing and turned to her. "If Aya's vault is to blame for this sea of fire consuming my home- then it needs to be stopped."  
"And the Moshae is down there- in the Vault as you call it?" Shepard's mind was spinning into gear.  
"Yes- she is our foremost researcher into the remnant."  
"Remnant?" Shepard looked up with a question. "The vaults." Jaal clarified. "We have grown up amongst them. The ruins of another civilization. The Moshae seeks to understand everything about those who have come before us in order to guide us. She is our spiritual leader- The resistance and the city governors be damned without her Aya and our people may as well fall!" He gestured wild.  
"Okay, so we go down there and get her out." Shepard spoke. "And if possible we find a way to shut down that vault, or otherwise stop it from damaging Aya further."

The com crackled "Suvi here, planetary conditions are worse then I initially anticipated. Spectroscopic scans of Aya's atmosphere indicate the conditions have been changing for at-least several weeks. Kallo is picking up a general evacuation order amongst the commlines for all equatorial cities."  
Jaal stood and gazed to her for a quiet moment. "No one has ever been able to operate Remnant technology at will, Shepard" He used her name for the first time, yet after that his gaze eased somewhat. "...But if we could save the Moshae. Even if we lose Aya, we can carry on the fight. " He balled his fist.  
"You wish to help the Angara Shepard?" He gazed to her. "Then help me save our Moshae."  
Shepard took a deep breath. "We will do more than that." She turned around. "Harper, Kosta, Krykk, suit up!" She gestured Jaal along. "You too, we have no time to lose." She got into a trot and reached her armory locker first, dressing down and up not caring who got to see her undies. "Sam" She called as she was getting her under suit on. "Set up a connection, QEC only to our home base. If they are still there. I need supply shuttles standing by with medical supplies. As much as the nexus can spare, this is a matter of both lives and our future diplomacy." She turned to Jaal who was suiting up beside her. "Assuming the Nexus is going to do as I ask, they are yours to command." Shepard wrangled herself into her armor. "I found out our medigel works on Angara's as well when I slapped it on you on the Kett cruiser, we have tons more and you will likely have a lot of civilians with burns or smoke inhalation issues." She hopped into her hip-piece and then fixed her thighs and boots. "Direct them to whatever system you feel is wise." The Angara nodded without a further word.  
"Alright" She addressed Kosta and Nihlus when they all stood geared up in the now not so empty anymore vehicle bay. Something was hiding under a big tarp. It had been loaded on their last visit to the Nexus.  
With a big, dramatic sway of her arms Shepard flung the tarp off to reveal something that made her downright giddy in her guts. She suppressed it. No time for drooling over her new toy.  
"We are about to execute a high altitude drop onto Aya, which will probably land us in a sea of flames. Kallo said he'd try to find us a nice spot but I ain't believing until I am seeing." She slapped the Nomads hull. "We are on a rescue mission. To rescue the spiritual leader of the Angara people. For this mission's success I am going to have you all listen to Jaal. This is his home, and his Moshae. Our secondary objective is to see if we can repeat a miracle and shut down the 'Vault', that is the giant alien building the Moshae is allegedly located as of right now. Any questions?"  
"Hostiles?" Nihlus asked.  
"Not expected. So keep your hands busy with fire-extinguishing equipment and to our resident biotics" Shepard spoke with an open expression towards Harper for the first time. "We may encounter a lot of debris, be ready for anything and pack some snacks. We don't know how deep the Moshae is in this vault."  
"I will be ready for anything" Harper spoke with her arms crossed behind her back.  
"Good. Dr.Carlyle, Dr.T'Perro, utilize every nook and cranny for beds if you have to, we may return with more people then we intend to.  
"Will do." Carlyle's voice hummed over the interface as Shepard stole the driver seat. Next to her, of course, the Turian had opted for the machine gun. He did not look guilty in the least for it.  
Behind her Harper, Kosta and Jaal sat strapped in, then in a flight of a second the hatch before them opened up.  
"Drop window approaching in 7 -6 -5" Kallo's voice chimed through her helmet. "Seal check!" She yelled and punched the gas down when Kallo got halfway to 1, causing the Nomad to careen off the Tempest's ramp at zero. 

They dived down into an ocean of fire and smoke that was nothing short of magical for all its dangers. Giant flame wrapped tornado's danced intricate dances as time itself seemed to have caught the Nomad. Right until Shepard's eyes flitted to the altitude meter and she initiated the rocket boosters to drop down their velocity from almost terminal to something more survivable.  
The Nomad's excellent Mako-inspired suspension did the rest, landing them on all six wheels in a spray of fire and ash. Shepard drove purely on ladar for a good few seconds, avoiding burnt down giant flora within inches until she could swerve the massive Nomad to a stop.  
Silence, descended. Only the sounds of a raging fire remained ever present.  
"Nomad to Tempest, we're alive." Shepard reported. "You are overstating Shepard" Nihlus commented and was looking to the rear seats. Both Jaal and Kosta were not looking too well.  
"Chin up- the hard part is over" Shepard tried and found levity. "But I am serious, seal check. I am not driving this thing into the flames without everyone's seals checking out."  
"Check" Kosta spoke nauseous. "Check" Cora spoke as if this was her day job.  
"I'm good" Nihlus was tapping on his omnitool. "I will be fine." Jaal nodded, looking better. Then she finally checked her own before driving off towards the in smoke covered massive alien structure. 

**Aya, Central continent 'Aysith', Onaon System, Heleus Cluster, Andromeda; presently amidst flames**  
"And miss all this? Hell no, I had been looking forward to this for months!" Nihlus was bouncing up and down on his seat with only his seatbelt keeping him from getting launched into the rovers roof. "I had a feeling you were a lunatic driver when I went over your reports you know?"  
"You are not helping!" Shepard yelled back and banked on a steep left turn to avoid an incoming cliff wall that hadn't been there a few seconds ago. The smoke set their visibility to almost nill and the ladar was suffering with the heavy element laced smoke.  
"Oh I know!" The Turian spectre grinned and crossed his legs and his talons behind his head. "I am content with being in the audience. Though I will be as kind as to warn you the back seats will be needing barf bags about now."  
"Shut UP!" Shepard roared without any venom to it as she took a steep decent down-hill.  
"Alien structure five hundred meters to our south-south east" Harper notified from the backseat. "Now south-west." "I have _never_ met a driver like you-" Liam groaned. "She is definitely-.. unique, in her driving style" Jaal commented.  
"Why do I feel like I am being judged?!" Shepard hollered back and swerved around a big burnt out shell of a tree. "Judged, nah." Nihlus grinned.  
"I believe in your language 'mocked' is the appropriate term." Jaal added.  
Then a guttural sound resounded in the cabin of the Nomad and Shepard pulled the ATV into a stop. "Who has the barfbags?" Nihlus asked on an apparent serious tone laden with highly amused sub vocals.  
"Are you alright Kosta?" She asked, and to the man’s credit he stuck a thumbs up. So she spun the rover up again and pushed through the burnt woodwork to reach the still burning parts surrounding the vault none of them could see through the dense smoke. It was enough to turn the sky dark grey with a fiery red tint. "Nihlus what is our shield status?" She asked. "a hundred percent operational."  
"Alright. Everyone throw up now if you have to. We are going to charge through the flames to get to the Moshae."

Angry fire licked on every window of the all terrain exploration vehicle. Even if it said all terrain on the docket, Shepard did not count on the Nomad's systems to last very long in this heat without its shields. And even the shields could only take so much. And after charging through, and hopefully finding a not-on-fire entrance, they'd have to make their way back to a place where it was safe enough for the Tempest to land. Shepard inhaled deep and stilled her worries as she navigated the burning wastelands.  
But as they proceeded, Jaal gasped with what Shepard swore was a keening sound as they reached something of a clearing in the fire. Buildings. Dwellings were given to the flames. With vehicles burning out next to them.  
This was one family who did not get away... In the driver seat sat something that had probably once resembled an Angara, next to him Shepard couldn't even make it out anymore whether that had been a person or goods. She forced a deep breath down into her lungs and pushed the Nomad on.  
"Shields holding at forty seven percent. No fused emitters yet." Nihlus had seen it too, she had seen him watch. But he was a spectre like her. Another would look foul to one who seemed unaffected by such tragedy. Yet Shepard silently found herself grateful. She could draw from his calm. It got her settled enough to push through the last pack of flames into a burning courtyard of what Shepard guessed was the compound to study the massive alien structure that emerged from the smoke. Walls of absolute back. Shapes that were out of this world.  
"This stuff is definitely alien." She swallowed. "Likely the scientists would have fled inside this thing. "  
"Yes, If the Moshae is still alive she is in here." Jaal spoke. "Then let’s find somewhere to park. "

 **Ark Natanus, telemetry offline, navigational array offline.**  

"Easy kid" Garrus set the bone on a jumpy youngster. "You did good."  
"W-Will they ever stop coming?" The kid was barely fifteen. "Oh they will" He policed his sub harmonics. "Just focus on taking on one of them at a time next time" He grinned.  
"Yes- I will Commander."  
"Good, let the medigel set before using that arm" He slowly sat down. His spine still ached from where one of the bastards had hit him a few weeks ago. His eyes had now fully gotten used to the low levels of light that were employed all across the ark. Not that those alien bastards had trouble in the dark, but they sure as hell didn't like a good flash bang.  
This attack, had become a small scale war. A siege. But if the aliens intended to wear them out then they needed a good lesson on how Turians worked. And all the more, they had a water treatment system in the cryo-bay, and more than enough food to sustain them for a while.  
However armaments and their ammunitions were a different story. They were taking alien weapons where they could now.  
At least there had been less casualties on their side. But even with all that. It wasn't enough for Avitus, their pathfinder. Garrus watched him pace from a little distance away.  
"You are going to wear out the deck plating." He commented dryly.  
"We need to hit them hard Garrus" Avitus Rix spoke. "I know that is what Macen would have done." He gestured as if they had been mid-conversation.  
Garrus was used to worse and listened.  
"Then we can finally get it through their bony heads that they have picked on the wrong ship!" He cast his black and almost icily white rimmed eyes to gaze a hole into the bulkhead.  
"Nothing is ever that simple Rix." Garrus sat back. "They aren't stupid. When they see us push along the port, they will mount an offensive on our starboard side." Garrus exhaled slow, making his breath whistle in his nose.  
"We have a place to protect. Where we cannot allow a single of those aliens to reach, because if they do- everything is lost. They do not have something like that. We cannot magically take down their ships without the Ark's weapon systems online."  
Garrus saw Avitus's gaze light up. With a sigh he continued before the pathfinder could. "And we cannot bring our weapon systems online because our drive core is barely limping as it is due to our ramming those energy clouds. If it fails, so will our cryo-bay, and all of us. If we risk drawing power from it for our weapons we risk overloading the thing."  
"Why?" Avitus's sub vocals were jammed with frustration. "Why must you be like this Vakarian!" He gestured. "Why must you fight me on every damned plan I have?!"  
Garrus stood slowly, but kept his pose open. "Because your plans endanger us all. I know a good plan from a bad one Avitus."  
"Do you?! You fought reapers in a grand scale war whilst serving as an advisory commission! You have _no_ experience with this-" He gestured. "Fighting in the trenches and with our backs to the wall-! All you would do is sit on your turian ass and defend whilst we should rid ourselves of this alien filth forever!" His sub vocals went haywire with stress and aggression.  
" _I_ am a former spectre! I was handpicked out from the crowd to do this job! And I did it to excellence according to the council for over fifteen years!"

All the while Garrus listened with an almost saintly patience- so she would have described it - he was boiling on the inside. Yet he decided to let Avitus run out of steam first. 

"Done?" He asked when the ex-spectre caught his breath. Garrus's sub vocals hummed with an emotion best described as calm but seriously pissed.  
"Now I take it you learned all this of me from what records you have access to here as a pathfinder?" He asked and lanced Avitus with an unrelenting gaze. When the pathfinder huffed and nodded. "So what?"  
Garrus spread his mandibles in a mocking grin. "I guess my partnering up with the savior of the galaxy was too sensitive information to take along to the Andromeda galaxy. I served beside Commander Jane Shepard of the Alliance Military, the first human Spectre."  
Avitus's brow plate scrounged up.  
"But in between fighting at her six, I happened to run a gang of vigilante's on Omega. As ugly as the fighting is here, Avitus. It was worse in Omega. I know all about overextending yourself, and taking risks you know you shouldn’t. It ends up getting people killed.  
Now I don't object to your idea's because I don't like you. Or because I am somehow not interested in getting this Ark to where it damn well should have been right now. I object to them because I see the same damned mistakes I made. Mistakes that got my people killed." Garrus did not let his gaze wander.  
"I was exactly as I was like you are now after I lost everyone. Hateful and lusting for vengeance. Not caring for the cost it takes on those around you." He stepped closer.  
"I wanted to kill the torin responsible for betraying me and my team. And I was willing to sacrifice everything that I was to sate that vengeance. She talked me out of it." He finally relented the pressure and closed his eyes.  
"Now I am nowhere near as persuasive as her. Nor probably as good or patient as her. But I can, and will, tell you when your ideas are bad."  
Avitus stood in silence for a moment longer after he had finished speaking, before finally turning around.  
Garrus noticed that his words had caught the ears of the others, and they were in fact no longer alone. He sighed from his gut and made his exit as well, time to make his rounds.  
This was going to go south sooner or later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone- welcome back and thank you for reading!<>  
> Just as a reminder, any Turian vocabulary can be found back [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7903315/chapters/18053329), and they are all thought up by [MizDirected](http://archiveofourown.org/users/MizDirected/pseuds/MizDirected)  
> Any Shelesh words (Shelesh = The Angara language) Can be found back on the official Wiki of ME:Andromeda [Convenient Link](http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Angara). However several words are of my own design as well. I promise I will round them up and add them in here later.  
>  **Elya** \- Angara unit of measurement.  
>  \--  
> I hope you all enjoy the story so far. Figuring out how Shepard will learn of the vaults has been a big question with me for long. But I think this is the most natural way for it to happen. As for why Aya's in panic, explainations will come eventually~  
> As for Nihlus, I have read a lot of ME Fan fiction, and am thus influenced in a large amount of ways. I do hope you like my version. He truly deserved more love then just being killed off in ME1... spoiler alert?


	7. Aya II

**Aya, Central continent ‘Aysith’, Onaon system, Heleus Cluster, Andromeda**

The heat was incredible. Having driven into the massive alien structure for a good 200 meters, it still ambushed her as she undid her helmet seal. “Sam” She wheezed and inhaled deep. No burning smells, that was good, right? “Exterior temperature?”  
“Three hundred and fifteen degrees Kelvin, commander.”  
“Put that in earth Celsius please-” She groaned and placed a few steps away from the shrinking and ticking metal plates of the Nomad. “Forty two degrees” the Ai reported. “Bloody hell.” She rubbed her gauntlet by her head- and instantly regretted that. “Owch- fuck” She jerked her hand away. 

“Genius, Shepard” An armor clad turian turned around and took a close look at her forehead. “First degree burns.” He undid his own helmet seal and hung it off his belt then grabbed a package of medigel before ripping it open and smearing some over her forehead as she sighed. 

“Jaal, Harper, look around and run some scans of the interior.-owch” 

“Sit still woman.” The turian admonished, but she brushed him off. “I will live, thank you.” She spoke with narrowed eyes. “Are you good in this heat Jaal?” She turned to the alien dressed in make-shift armor rushed together aboard the Tempest.   
“Worry not about me commander.” He undid his helmet seal. “We Angara are a strong race.”

"Alright, Kosta stay with the Nomad, we don't want to come back and discover our ride has been stolen." She tossed the man a lopsided smile. "More action for you another time. But if you see Angara needing help, and can help them without compromising our mission by all means go ahead."  
"Understood commander."

As Shepard gestured the rest along to something resembling an entry into the massive dark and overgrown structure, she felt a sense of pure awe come over her. Everything about this place was alien. Even more so then the Prothean ruins had been on Therum, and the Innusannon/Prothean ruins on Ilos. She only noticed Jaal was standing beside her when he spoke up.  
"The remnant have been here as long as we remember. Yet other then sporadic occurrences, none yet have managed to master it." He looked up as he set out. Shepard followed pace but looked to him.  
"Back on the Tempest, you spoke of the possibility of this-" He gestured around him "Being some sort of climate controlling device. Our scientists have determined the same, but even though we have sought as to how it influences Aya for centuries, we still have no answers."  
"And the Moshae, she knows most of everyone?" Shepard trailed by the walls with her hands. "Yes." Jaal spoke with his eyes refocusing. Losing that earlier sparkle of wonder.  
The place was almost maze-like. "The Geth would have loved this place." She spoke as she scanned a downed machine of a kind. Then her eyes lit up. "Sam, how is connectivity here?"  
"Due to my router on the Nomad our signal is optimal at the present time, commander."   
"Good. Run continuous scans, use my omnitool. We need to figure out a great deal about these things if we want to put a stop to what it is doing."  
"Understood."

"Careful" The Angara warned as a cavity opened below. "This is a gravity well."  
Harper gazed down over the edge. "How far down does this go?" She looked up with wonder mixed in her eyes. "Several hundreds of meters" Sam spoke up.   
With a fluent movement Jaal jumped down. Shepard saw gravity take hold and carry him down in a way so gentle it surprised her.  
"Well-" She spoke to ignore her protesting sanity. "Here goes-" She forced her muscles to jump, and after a small moment of terror- gravity grabbed her and carried her down. She saw massive canyons of foreign technique that reminded her only to the reapers in its color. In everything else- it carried a grace the reapers never had demonstrated. Almost as if the facility itself was meant to be a work of art, created by Geth-like hands.   
The wonder did not cease as the gravity gently let her down onto the floor below, where the colder temperature and a subterranean wind hit her face. "Ambient temperature is now fourteen degrees Celsius."  
"How deep are we SAM?" She asked as she let herself explore a bit. "Approximately 1300 meters."

When the whole team was down she spotted the Turian dial up his suit heaters. The cold stimulated her senses and reinvigorated her. "Which way- Jaal?" She admitted feeling naked without her weapons as they were submerged into the building, only a handgun for personnel safety. Not _all_ her missions were about blowing stuff up.  
"Here" The Angara led them through a series of passages that had seen better days. "Hey Jaal." Shepard had to ask as she navigated around, what had to be, recent debris. "How come you know your way through this labyrinth so well?"  
"I was an apprentice of her, a time ago" He spoke and guided them onwards. "Thus I used to come here often. The damage you see here is new."  
"You are still her apprentice?" Shepard asked. "No. I was-" He stopped to think. "..' too impatient to be taught' "  
Somewhere that made her smile. 

"Jaal! You are alive!?" A strangely flanged, lighter pitched voice spoke. "Evfra believes you dead- captured by the Kett-"   
Shepard came face to face with her first example of the females of the Angara species. Equally long and of a similar build as Jaal, only slightly thinner. Her face was decorated with an ornate set of accessories amongst which was predominantly a kind of circlet. Framed in-between it were two vivid blue eyes. Her hands cupped Jaal's cheeks like she was his mother.   
"That talk can wait Moshae. We have come to evacuate you-" Jaal gestured, the relief Shepard picked up in his voice was anything but hidden.   
"Then you have come on a fool’s errand Jaal- I will not and forsake our home."  
"But Moshae Sjef-" She silenced him with a single gesture of her hand. "Who are your friends, Jaal?" She turned to face her for the first time.   
She saw that behind her Nihlus and Harper stood side by side. 

"This is Shepard, she is the one who saved me from exaltation. She belongs with the 'Initiative'" Hearing Jaal pronounce that would have been funny under different circumstances.  
"I am pleased to meet you Moshae Sjefa." Shepard extended her hand. The Angaran female looked at her with an expression of doubt, almost, before extending her hand- which was, Shepard realized, an absolutely foreign custom to them. Great start. Yet she clasped her soft hand gently. "We are from the milky way galaxy." She pulled out all bits of diplomatic knowledge she knew she had tucked away somewhere, but ended up falling back on a few lessons Wrex had given her long ago about dealing with Krogan.  
Look them straight in the eyes, and don't lie. She opted out the head butting part.

"So I have been told." The Moshae's stare was impressive. Shepard realized Angara really had beautiful eyes.  
"Forgive my hesitation. Our luck in meeting foreign species has been poor- so to say." She turned to Jaal. "These humans are not from Kedara?"  
"No." Jaal shook his head. "These are a different sort. They come from their Nexus-" Shepard felt her guts go cold a moment. Whatever the hell was going down on Kedara was bad for whatever future ties the initiative would foster with the Angara. She'd have to press Jaal for it sometime-  
"We are here to find a new home. Not to cause pain." Shepard spoke, then sighed. "At least- We try."  
The Moshae shook her head gently. "I have decided, you saved my former student." She laid her hand on Jaal's shoulder. "And you fight the Kett. That is enough" She smiled. Shepard couldn't help but offer an almost shy smile in return. She felt like an old soul. Lights twinkled in her eyes.   
"But we have more pressing issues at this moment. We need to evacuate Moshae." Jaal gestured. "If you die here, then our cause is lost."  
"Tsk" She pulled off a look Shepard couldn't identify as she gazed to Jaal. "The day of my death will come sooner or later Jaal. Life does not hinge on me."  
Shepard felt a stab of recognition as she listened to them when looking around.  
"Conserving Aya is of more importance then this life, whether you and Evfra agree or not. If we lose Aya, with how our current status is on Havarl and Voeld the Kett will ultimately defeat us."  
"If we get this thing to shut down. Will you evacuate?" Shepard spoke up and asked as she and Nihlus were looking at the blue flickering glyphs.  
"Shut down the vault?" The Moshae closed her eyes and shook her head as she regarded her. "Remnant technology is too advanced for us to control. I have tried every theory, every thought these last weeks in order to stop the craze that has taken hold of the vault, to no avail."  
"All we can do is to learn as much as possible in order to adapt. Like I said, Aya is our last sanctuary against the Kett. The shroud hides her from their eyes. If we lose it then we will have lost our last safe bastion."

"What if I told you one of us shut down a vault before?" Well, Alec Ryder presumably did _something_ to the vault on Habitat 7. That 'something' had not suddenly changed the planet, but it had stopped the lightning storms from magnetizing the surface of the planet.  
"What?!" The Moshae turned around immediately. "Your people have shut down a vault?" an incredulous wonder was trapped in her eyes, but as soon as it flickered into existence it was paired with doubt. "How?"  
"Our previous pathfinder shut down one of these vaults before- but the details-.."  
"Are classified?" The Moshae gave her a testing look. It made Shepard realize why she hated politicians. "No- but our pathfinder died. I am his" ill trained "replacement." She held her gaze on the Moshae.   
"Pathfinder" She rolled the word over her lips. "Way-seeker?" Shepard nodded. She didn't like being reminded of the responsibility riding on her shoulders, but forced herself to recall the uncomfortable truths.   
"If we do not find a place to place down our roots- our colonies- we will starve within the cycle."  
"Cycle?" She looked to Jaal, who tapped on his omni-tool. "A little under one Yanri."   
The Moshae looked back to her. "With how many are you?"  
Shepard couldn't hide away her emotion from her face. "The first wave was supposed to be a little over seven million people. But we already lost all the adults from one of our arks to the Kett and their experiments. " Seeing those bodies- she shook her head as if bitten by a bug then breathed deep.   
"I see." The Moshae looked thoughtful. "..why?" She looked back to her again. "Why did you cross dark-space to come here?"  
To this Shepard could only smile listlessly. "Adventure. To explore and discover is the original cover story they sold everyone. But if you ask me there is more to it. A-.. need, of some kind." She locked her grey eyes onto the Moshae's stare. Showing her hand like that was no doubt risky as all hell, and something Tann would have kittens over, but they made _her_ pathfinder. So she decided she would do this on her way.  
But when she saw the concerned set to the Moshae's eyes she doubted whether she had done the right thing.   
"We-.. survived a war. A war that spanned our entire galaxy, every single species and every single home world and colony." She closed her eyes. "We desperately fought many losing battles to a machine race known as the 'Reapers'. So if it is war you fear to receive from us." She gently shook her head.   
"Don't worry" She pulled a small smile. 

"I see" The Moshae nodded. "I appreciate your honesty"   
No promises that could be broken were made. But a foundation of trust was laid. Or so Shepard dearly hoped.

"Would you help us find something that could be an access point to the vault? The additional diplomatic talk can come after we shut this thing down." Shepard asked.   
The eyes of the Moshae did not move for a moment- allowing Shepard to spot her own reflection in them.   
"Jaal, do you trust these people?" She looked down and turned around. Shepard didn't blame her, the fate of the Angara home world was tied to this remant vault.  
It took some time before he replied. The Angara looked to her, then to her fellows, and then to the Moshae.  
"...I trust her." He seemed troubled. "I cannot trust her initiative. But I fought with her, and alongside her."  
The Moshae nodded gentle. "Then I will show you."

The device was massive in size and scope, and whomever designed all this had a triangle-fetish, Shepard decided. A massive energy beam was pouring out radiation that without proper vaccination would be lethal. Gladly, shields caught this type of radiation as well, eliminating the need to get back to the Tempest to get inoculated.   
"This is what I believe to be the heart of the facility, kilometers of underground tunnels converge to this point."  
"Any idea about the power source?"  
"None. It defies all our scans." Even gazing into the beam was hard without the polarized glass of a helmet to dim it down. "SAM, any theories?"  
"Possibly the energy source is based on nuclear fusion." The Ai replied. "Estimated yield is roughly equivalent to the citadel's main drive core."  
"Bloody hell-" Shepard whispered. "Okay, now what would that old wiseass do?" She closed her eyes, then looked up as something came to mind.   
"Sam, check for any broadcasts, test sending on all possible channels and frequencies, see what gets you a result."  
"Understood."  
As Sam worked Shepard overheard the Moshae and Jaal talk. "Most of the evacuation should be done now. They took towards the polar cities. The death-count is estimated to be around fifteen thousand, mostly those who lived outside the cities in small daars."  
Shepard let out a breath. "Anything yet SAM?" "Negative commander"  
"How did Alec do this?" She asked. Calling herself an idiot for not thinking of that before. He was pathfinder before her. So by all means he had access to Sam.  
"Unknown. My memory banks of his last visit to Habitat 7 are damaged."  
"Extrapolate as best as you can Sam, we need to hurry."  
It took half an hour before the Ai spoke again. "I have found translation matrix remains- the archive is corrupted- attempting to repair using current resources."  
"What else did he do, are there more broken files in there?"  
"Processing Commander."  
"Yeah- right. Sorry" She sighed. She hated waiting.   
"The language is an unusually complex one carrying multiple sets of grammar and a vast vocabulary. Attempting to restore."  
It took the better part of an hour.  
"Approximate translation complete Commander. All currently available remnant glyphs have been recorded and analyzed. Limited data on their meanings is available. The console instructs to initiate a broad band broadcast with a .5 oscillation variance. This will initiate a handshake procedure. Further information unknown.  
Shepard sighed but felt somewhat optimistic. "It is more than we had an hour ago. And our best shot." She gazed to the Moshae who had joined them.   
"Who is this you speak to?" She asked. "Sam, our artificial intelligence, our previous pathfinder worked with him to deactivate the other vault." Shepard explained trying very hard to keep this light and avoid an incident.   
"I see- have you managed to translate the remnant ruins?"  
"Only a small portion." The Ai answered. "I would be very interested in a copy of that information." Shepard smiled. "SAM, can you send it to Jaals omnitool? We haven't exactly figured out a way to make our omnitools talk with your data-pads, but when there is one consider it yours." She saw Jaal tapping away on the orange halo around his arm. "Do you mind giving that to the Moshae later?"  
"No." He answered whilst reading, then looked up. "Thank you, I will relay it."  
"Pathfinder" She shivered. "Yes Moshae?" The female Angara gestured. "Aya has always had its vault active. I believe entirely shutting it down can potentially do more harm than good. Although I understand our current situation, please bear this in mind. If there is at all anything more than a simple off-and-on switch- take due care. We depend on Aya" Strict eyes looked into hers.   
"We will." Shepard held her gaze. "When exactly did the vault start misbehaving?"  
"Twenty-one days ago." The Moshae took up a data pad. "The energy output increased with an approximate 286%. But those readings are not entirely dependable as the energy source itself defies our scans."  
Shepard nodded. "I will do what I can. I promise."  
"Thank you." She closed her eyes as she lowered her head in what Shepard guessed was a social gesture she was unfamiliar with. Assuming stuff is the same across cultures- especially galaxies away- gets people offended.

"Alright Sam, can you try to access the vault's systems?"  
"Attempting."

"Attempting.."

"Attempting..."

It took half an hour before Shepard sighed. "What is your status Sam, can you reach the vaults systems?"  
"There is an remnant variant of a firewall in place- my attempts to break through it have yet to be successful."  
"Any reason why they would spike a channel they'd like to be contacted on with such a safety precaution?" Shepard wondered. "Maybe they just don't like answering machines?" Harper commented.   
Shepard kept her gaze on her so long she got a tad uncomfortable. 

"That may just be it." She snapped her fingers.". A safeguard from synthetic access." She brought her fingers to her lips. "If the species that designed this place were organic- and smart, they would place safeguards against off and on-site hacks. If these really are giant terraforming machines, as the wildfires and storms outside are evidence of- then they are also potential weapons of mass destruction."  
"Grim" Nihlus remarked with his arms crossed.  
"Blame Star Trek." She mumbled. "We need to find a way to emit the proper initiation signal from an organic."  
"Impossible." Harper spoke. "But what if it was an organic combined with a synthetic?" She crossed her arms.   
Shepard sighed troubled. "Why is man mixed with machine such a common theme in my life." She looked down, but then admonished herself. No time to mope about the past. "Sam, is there any way to make that suggestion work?"  
"Calculating.... Your implant is non-standard and a prototype created by Ellen Ryder." That came as a surprise. "Oookay, -.." A connection between Ryder and Miranda? That had to be sorted out later.  
"The possibility is viable. Ordinarily this would not be the case, however due to the extensive cybernetics in your cranium the plan is viable. Several of them have become obsolete as your brain damaged sections healed or have re-wired. These can now be used to emit the probable signal in tandem with your SAM-implant."  
"...I can't just-.. use my omnitool?" Shepard asked, not liking where this was going. "Negative. It would be interpreted as another machine and encounter the same firewall." She sighed. "Likely the builders of this place had extensive cybernetic implants grafted into their bodies, allowing them to communicate with facilities such as this one. We will have to emulate this."  
"I am not liking this" She inhaled deep. "Can you drive the signal or do I have a role in this other than being a human key?"  
"Unknown"  
She lolled her head back. "Alright let’s just do this, there is no time everyone be ready for just about anything. If my head explodes- you will still owe me Krykk" She pulled on her gallows humor.  
The Turian shook his head. "You are too thickheaded for that." He quipped back. It got her to smile.   
"Start up the signal Sam. And pray this works."  
"I cannot fathom the concept of praying very well, Initiating the signal."

A hum went through her head she could not explain- it didn't hurt, it just felt so- foreign. But that peace did not last long. "Handshake protocol initiat-" An ice-pick drilled into her brain and her ears whistled so hard it drowned out whatever Sam had been saying. The sensation in her arms and legs were gone, in fact she did not feel like she had a body at all anymore. But just as sudden as the onslaught had started, it ended again and she dropped down onto the cold floor like a floundering fish gasping for air. 

"Just- like- at the citadel-" She groaned after she felt all of her extremities sting as if she had been crushed by a Krogan for a couple of days. "Are you alright?" Harper, Nihlus and the Moshae were bent over her.   
"No-" She groaned, her head felt like it was on fire and blood dripped out of her nose. "But I am still breathing so I got that going for me." She slowly sat up. "Did we succeed?" A spark of hope lit up in her chest.  
"Unfortunately we did not" Sam's voice sounded oddly close.   
"Not as far as we could see from here. You just stood there with your arm outstretched and then collapsed." Nihlus recapped as Harper pushed a dose of medigel into her suit.   
"Great." She sighed and untensed her muscles, laying on the cold alien floor.   
Now what?

"What exactly went wrong Sam?" She asked as she munched on a ration bar. Sam did not answer.   
"Sam?" Shepard felt alarmed and got up. "Most likely" The Ai began but seemed- hesitant?  
"Theorizing by currently available data allows for the supposition that the remnant possessed within them a neural node network"  
"In English?" Shepard asked, feeling the dread within her pool.  
"They likely utilized their organic brains as a kind of neural computer for a synthetic program to run on."   
Shepard swallowed thick. "What is it- with machines, and needing to be in my head?" She spoke on a thin, exhausted tone. "Weren't the reapers enough? Wasn't having my brain in a damned fucking blender enough?" She wasn't talking to anyone but paced off, breathing deep and balling her firsts.   
"Is there a way any of us can fill in?" Harper asked Sam.   
"Negative. Despite you having a Sam implant, you lack the necessary synthetic infrastructure in place in your cranium to allow for such a procedure to succeed without significant risk of brain damage."  
"And me?" Nihlus asked on an oddly quiet tone.   
"Inconclusive data. Thorough medical scans are needed to answer this query."

"Plug me in once more" Shepard came walking back. "Sam, we need to do this, whatever you need to do, do it, figure out how to access the vault. There is no time when I will like this, so we may as well get this over with." She placed both hands on the triangular console.   
"Are you certain? Significant mental and physical stresses are predicted."  
"The fate of the Angara home world is worth me reliving my worst fucking nightmares so yes, do it and don't ask again- just do it."  
"Very well, Initializing second attempt"  
The Moshae looked concerned, but Jaal assured her. "She is strong."

An uncomfortable heat was building that she couldn't place anywhere, nothing she couldn't deal with yet- just keep breathing- in- and out- and in- and ou-

The ice-pick returned to jam its way into her head, and this time it went along with her muscles randomly twitching and almost making her fall. She clasped the console and bit her lip as she saw blood drip down on the remnant glyphs on the console.   
"F-Fuu-AAH!" She grasped her head. "My apologies" Sam's voice sounded closer than it ever had before. She wanted to speak- to scream and yell at him to get this over with.  
It was the most primal feeling of all that threatened to drown her. Fear. Because she was gradually losing control over her limbs. They wouldn't move when she told them to move- and the wrong-ness of that just crushed her like a boot crushed a bug. It stirred an ancient almost invincible panic in her that chased up her heart rate into the 200rds. Her stomach threatened to spill her ration bar on the cold black floor- and her whole body began to shake. She couldn't even scream.  
'Handshake protocol initiating' Whether she understood it Sam's voice seemed to cut its way into her understanding that made no sense.   
Slowly, sensation bled out of her extremities, but her legs moved steady again... only not by her doing.  
Almost like a boat drifting out onto the open sea- she lost touch of her surroundings, of her body- of everything until she was in a place both light and dark- devoid of any scent- or other kind of information.   
"-nnection established." Sam's voice echoed from somewhere-   
"Where?" Her words echoed out without her lips moving. The feeling of being body-less was so un-nerving she almost felt like she had felt during her first zero-G exercise.   
"Over-saturated input- establishing filters."  
"Sam?" She asked as she heard his voice again. Slowly, the world surrounding her became darker.. more- natural in a way. She began to see patterns, then recognized them as glyphs, remnant glyphs.   
"Loading translation utility to shell"  
Words appeared in english, floating under them. She realized she had to be in whatever network was controlling this ark. Queasy she tried to breathe- then distracted herself with reading when she realized she had no head nor lungs to breathe with.   
'Control|Operations|Command'  
She reached out for it, despite not having a physical body- but somehow- it worked. "Translating inputs and outputs- processing."  
The world shattered into square-bits, and then seemed to re-arrange itself again.   
"Approximate translation available, accuracy is at a predicted 33%"  
That was much to go on, she swallowed with a non-existent throat and took in the information around her.  
Atmospherically controls, soil concentrations, genetic seed banks, massive water reserves- the options were too many for her degree as a spectre and soldier to cover. This needed a cadre of climatologists.

**The Natanus, telemetry offline, navigation array offline**

He saw the ex-spectre go down at the same moment as he felt the alien weapon bore its way through his chest plate, that when he knew they were fucked, in a bad way.  
The sniper-rifle round packed a wallop so hard it smacked him against the bulkhead they were trying to keep, and the deep cobalt colored blood seeping through his armor plating did not make for a particularly re-assuring sight. Yet as he watched the ex-spectre get up before he could, a spark of admiration flared. He shared her grit. As grief stricken as he was- he got back up to lynch the bastards. He forced himself up, but as he saw her standing there beside him slamming his suit's medigel dispenser and looking at him with eyes full of worry, he knew he was hit bad.   
The same thing had happened in Omega, during the siege. Weeks of overdosing on stims, skipping sleep, malnourishment and an extreme version of what was likely a healthy mix of paranoia and PTSD fuelled by the tarp-covered bodies of his squad had called for her company.  
Even only as a figment of his imagination, amplified by a stims addled mind.  
But she had been real enough to pull him through those days. 

But even after helping him keep his ass alive for long enough for the real her to find him, he never had gotten the opportunity to tell her.  
With the reaper war and all.  
As he stared at the ceiling of the corridor he was floored in- those memories welled up like the Trialli geysers on Palaven. Even with the fighting thickening around him. 

They had been running from one fight to the next for as long as he has had the privilege to serve with her.   
He loved every minute of it. Things like Project Overlord, or the Citadel war or the collector base, the places and events themselves he did not particularly care for to repeat, but fighting through them all on her six was something he knew he'd always treasure having done. And hoping to do so again- He chastised himself. 'I am not bloody dying here, this is just a side effect of getting shot.' He rationalized, but did not quite believe himself yet. Looking down he saw more than a little bit of blood. And a blood-frenzied Avitus and a squad of their own pushing back the aliens.   
...  
'I really need to tell her.' He felt like he had been drinking too much in Wrex's company now, as a dull pain throbbed. He shook his head. 'I need to live in order to do that'  
So the ex-cop and ex-proper turian jammed his mandibles to his face as he forced his body up. It was far more difficult then he would have liked.  
He swore he saw her supporting him as he limped his way back to their stronghold at the cryo-wards. 

**Aya, Central continent ‘Aysith’, Onaon system, Heleus Cluster, Andromeda**

 

She quietened her nerves and breathed deep with non-existant lungs. "Sam, are you still with me?" She asked as she found her way to the network-control-access.   
"Affirmative" The voice came from deep within her, it was a little bit unsettling. "What the hell am I seeing? I feel if I touch any of these I will make Aya permanently uninhabitable. I need a better option."  
Shepard noticed Sam was, not as stable as usual, his response was delayed. "Standard settings seem not to have been altered, but overwritten by a new set of programming taking precedence over default settings." His speech jittered and filled with static. "The overriding signal comes from this vaults connection to seemingly larger network."  
"A network?-.. you mean these vaults are linked? How many more are there?" She asked feeling wondered.   
"Attempting to map the network-" Before her in the dimmed white room filled with alien glyphs a branching network was visualized, first only two- then a third... a fourth- but on the next node the map bloomed like a flower, branching ever outward into more and more nodes with more pathways- millions- all connecting to a single brightly lit source.  
"Are these.. vaults? All of these nodes?"   
"Affirmative"  
"Holy hell.. and what about this place?" She pointed to the point of origin.   
"Unknown. The only available information state what likely is its designation"  
"Meridian" Sam finished. "Signal location is confirmed to originate from Meridian, attempt disconnection procedure?"  
"Do it-" Shepard committed the map to memory. "Is there any way we can transfer this data to our systems Sam?"   
"Unknown."  
Shepard sighed without lungs. It was beautiful in a sense. Now only if it would stop trying to kill them.  
"Disconnection procedure succeeded. Vault is resuming standard operations." Sam's voice degraded even more. "Timely disconnect is advised."  
"The sooner the better- disconnect us Sam" Shepard did not quite believe in their success yet.

It was like that one time she almost got rammed by that shuttlecraft in London, only this time she couldn't dodge the crashing vehicle. Something hit her square in the stomach and lurched her out of the world of light and imagery into somewhere dark and painful.  
"Attempt-" Sam’s voice flashed on and off through the building cacophony that was her head "Disconnection procedures interrupted-" A nova went off behind her eyes and she crumbled to the ground in a body that was cold and on fire at the same time as every single nerve in her body went into static-mode. It tore a scream from her lips.   
"SAM!" She yelled as blood vessels burst and blood ran down her nose and lips. The building pressure behind her eyes caused her vision to give out as her head hit the metal deck plating before any foreign hands could reach her. 

 

**The Tempest, high standard orbit around Aya, Onaon System, Heleus Cluster, Andromeda**  
Shards of memories danced before her eyes. The most notable being sovereign, and Harbinger. Their joined voices compelled her to go to the darkness a long time ago. She realized somewhere in the back of her mind this was the first time she did not feel the nauseating wave of dread she used to feel upon hearing the machine voices speak.   
Even from memory or dream. They always had had this deeply terrifying effect on her. Something primal, Garrus had once told her. Pheromones composing of pure fear. Most likely it was a trick from the reapers themselves to make species cower before them rather than to fight back.   
Long, had that pheromone of terror controlled her. Even after her second revival.  
But it did not anymore. For whatever reason. Perhaps merging with another machine erased whatever left-over bits and pieces of indoctrination that had survived beyond their masters passing somehow.   
More recent memories flashed by. The scent of antiseptic and burned buildings. The sight of the Killi going up in a ball of flames as it took out whatever remained of a previous cycle's civilization.   
Mindoir. Before hell had landed. The smell of the poppies in the summer.  
Palaven. During her N7 training. Goodness she was happy to have lived there without a helmet and enviro-suit. Earth, Vancouver. With, and without reapers.   
Thessia. Hanging off the end of that half-gone building after having faced Kai-Leng. The bastard. Her last lingering memory was of Omega.   
Sure, it smelled worse than anything she had ever encountered added with a side of dead vorcha. But it made her feel alive again after being dead for almost two years.   
Slowly, actual information her brain was taking in was merging with her memories, which placed her squarely back on the SR-2's med bay and in Dr.Chakwas's capable hands.  
The gentle humming of the SR-2's Tantalus inspired drive core almost put her back to sleep again. She could tell where she was on the frigate. Medbay. After a deep breath, she carefully exhaled, afraid to break her peaceful reality. She recalled, Menae had been one hell of a rollercoaster ride.

**Menae, Trebia System, Apien Crest, Milkyway galaxy**

"What do you mean the primarch is on the other side of the bloody moon?" The roiling drums of war fired in straccato as meteors filled with reaper-horror-creatures soared overhead to land two hundred meters to the north-west of camp.   
Menae's thin- dust-riddled air was usually a lot easier to breathe, but with two massive capitol-ship-size reapers tap-dancing around on its surface the moon's natural regolith was literally stomped to dust. "As I said." A weary but hardened torin popped up from over the metal cabin that was the Turian army standard equivalent of a bunker. "He is on the other side of Menae, fighting close to its southern pole. I have men trying to raise him but the damned reapers are jamming our long distance comms."  
"For the love of-" Shepard sighed and immediately wished she hadn't, a harsh cough wormed its way out of her and left her gasping. "Can you plan us a route?" She eyed Liara and Vega, fighting through so much terrain- yet calling in the Normandy for a pick-up also posed a significant risk of getting themselves shot at. Stealth drive or no, these reapers were bound to have camera's in the visual spectrum as well when engaged in ground combat like this.   
"It is a 19.743Km hike." Her translator spat the converted distance into her ear. "Alright" She sighed. "We will fight our way through." She held her gauntlet before her lips as she coughed.   
"God Speed Spectre"

She saw -what she was quite certain was- the Resolute draw the reapers ire away from her thousands of fighters. Where she had been pushing her team and herself past the brutal horrors that had befallen the Turians on their moon, and on the planet below, now, she couldn't help but pay testimony to the carrier's attack. Whilst probably every space worthy ship abandoned her side under resolute Turian orders, she saw -and felt- her fury, and the fury those who had huddled under her wings in their desperate bid to save their home from the reapers wrath.   
Watching her go down was the first thing to hit home since Earth. Throughout the years, no matter how she had disliked it, she had grown accustomed to violence and the pain and death that clung to its shadow. Feeling this pain in her chest -oddly enough- caused relief in the commander. It was proof she still hadn't lost all of her humanity to whatever the war, and Miranda's alterations had done to her.   
Pushing onward they reached the next heavily fortified encampment after hiking through low-oxygen wastelands.   
"Shoot thrice if you are no reaper!" A flanged voice cried from afar. The absurd but effective strategy actually caused her lips to curl in a joyless grin before firing a three-round burst from her rifle.   
"Who goes there?" Another flanged voice asked, and Shepard turned around the corner of solid rock now that she knew she'd likely not get Swiss-cheesed by the Turians with good aim.   
"Spectre plus two!" She called back, rifle at low ready she pushed for a slow forward gait to keep any rattled recruit from getting too jumpy.  
"Friendlies, let them through" The first voice called. "Much appreciated" Vega grinned. "The fighting must have been rough here too"  
"The camp surely looks like it has seen better days" Liara noted. "I am pretty sure this isn't the only place" Shepard couldn't help but reply with a slight edge to her tone. "Where is your CO?"  
"Right up the hill to your left m'am. Big burly guy, can't miss him." The young torin spoke with a gesture and a bit of a Turian grin.   
"Thanks" Shepard found a small smile. These men still had some fire left in them.   
Only three steps later the ground lurched away from under her feet and her hearing was gone. When she opened her eyes she saw the same young Torin yell to his peers. She felt a yank on her arm coming from Vega, who was looking rather.. alarmed.  
When she followed his sight-line, she came face to face with a massive reaper construct known as a brute. And damn, it was angry.   
Trying to outmaneuver it was one thing but trying to outmaneuver it whilst coughing your lungs out and barely being able to see due to the dust being kicked up whilst avoiding this mad thing were two wholly different ballgames. She was tired, weary and feeling more than done with this whole mess, and in a scream of frustration missed half her shots. Why? Why wouldn't those S.O.B's on the council listen to her? This whole thing could have gone so much different. All this- this death, the carnage happening on Earth and on Palaven, the loss of the _whole_ second fleet. Why?   
With the moon's cliff to her back and her rifle firing into the charging thing, she first thought about giving up. No one had bothered to listen to her. No one had been willing to believe even the _possibility_ of her being right. Instead they had locked her up. Confined her to quarters, until they had come and begged her to save them. Right before being crushed by their own building in Vancouver by the damned menace she had been warning them of but they had chosen to deny the existence of.  
She had better places to be. Better people to save. Her own people. Those who _did_ believe her. Her eyes moved to Palaven, with its capitol city of Cipritine wreathed in flames.   
An earth-shattering rifle shot tore her from her thoughts and dragged her back into reality. A second shot resounded so loud she had trouble finding the source, but it caused the massive reaper construct before her to slump to Menae's surface. 

"Shepard?" A dual-toned voice cut through the whistling in her ears. Jumping down from the cliff was a torin dressed in a familiar deep blue armor with a worn, yellow emblem on his arm.   
Her chapped lips curled up into an actual smile as cool relief flooded her nerves.   
"Nice aim"  
"You look terrible"   
"Why thank you" She found herself in a chuckle to her own surprise, and pushed her protesting body off the rock face and set to walk to him.   
Wrist pressed against wrist in their greeting, then arm, clasped arm.   
"When news came in about Earth" The torin met her eyes. "-I should have known you'd be fine, but I was worried." His mandibles flicked outward. "I am glad to see you"  
"As am I" She spoke up, forcing her hoarse voice. "How about your family, are they alright?"  
The silence told her enough.   
"What are you doing here on Menae?" She asked.   
"Advising." He held that dry sound in the back of his throat she knew equaled a human sarcastic chuckle. "If you will believe it. What are _you_ doing here?" He guided her up and into camp, shouting some orders along the way to repair the barricade.   
"Also, nice to see you again Liara."  
"Likewise" The Asari held a reserved smile. "And you are?" The torin regarded the bulky human male.  
"This is lieutenant Vega." Shepard introduced.   
"Vega, meet Garrus Vakarian, someone who has been along for this ride since it began." She laid a single hand on his upper arm.   
"Pleased to meet you sir." He held somewhat of a teasing lightness to his voice.   
"We are trying to find the next primarch." Shepard sighed as she bent over the status area map Garrus had loaded in his command bunker.   
"Fedorian is dead?" Garrus stood next to her, peering into the fotons that defined Menae's pockmarked surface.  
"Yes, killed about seven hours ago according to General Corinthus."  
"Damn." The torin shook his head.   
"The next one in line is General Adrien Victus, heard of him?"  
"I did. I was fighting beside him several days ago."  
"We need to get him off-planet and into a summit meeting." Shepard gazed up to him. "The future of our galaxy depends on it. As dramatic as that sounds, it is far too true." She grumbled.   
"Then it is settled. Rest up. I will mobilize the troops and we will move south with you."  
A spark of hope went off in Shepards chest.   
"You are sure you want to be in this mess with me?" She tried to ask lightly, but failed keeping her expression straight.  
Slowly the torin turned around and met her eyes with his ice blue gaze.   
"I am in this mess with you until the end, Shepard. I got your back."

**The Tempest, high standard orbit around Aya, Onaon System, Heleus Cluster, Andromeda**

"Welcome back in the land of the living Shepard" A gruff -definitely not belonging to Dr.Chakwas- voice spoke. Reality dawned on her almost in slow-motion.  
"You were quite walking the edge there." He sounded tired. "If not for Sam you would not have made it."  
Slowly, she opened her eyes with more emotion than Dr.Carlyle had expected. "Come again?-" She croaked on a barely audible voice.   
"I don't know what kind of stunt you two pulled off down there on the planet, but it almost fried all of your neurons. The human brain is a sensitive organ, you should not endeavor on such operations without a medic at hand next time, you could have been killed had your team been any slower bringing you back here!"  
The emotion Shepard felt streaming off the doctor like radiation of a pulsar shell shocked her into silence.  
"This was clearly alien tech. Built for an alien physiology, not for human minds. Then again I see you have a track record for messing with mind-altering alien tech."  
She blinked twice and swallowed. The prothean beacon.  
"That alien device overloaded your neurons with bio-electric energy on almost 200% of what a human mind can withstand. It may have worked this time but you must never initiate this again without countermeasures to guarantee your safety in place. Do you understand?"  
She almost felt buried by the man's words, but nodded faintly. As the shock had come and gone, she just wanted some quietude. Only then she realized what he had said.  
"It worked?" She groaned.  
"It did" He spoke with a hung head. "The Moshae is aboard, the crew are monitoring Aya's climate as we speak."  
Slowly she sat up. "...I need to assemble the team." Fire rebuilding in her heart. Right uptil the moment that Dr.Carlyle pushed her back into bed.   
"No you don't. You are getting 24 hours of sleep to let your neurons recover." He nailed her with a glare and the unspoken threat of a tranquilizing agent. 

With a groan she fell back into bed. She did not fancy being knocked out one single bit. But the information in her head was being shredded to pieces by what had to be a pack of vorcha that had taken up residence in her cranium.  
"Sam" She croaked soft. A hum began coursing through her head, and in alarm she shot up. "Do not be alarmed." Sam's voice echoed so much closer than before. "There is a lot Dr.Carlyle and I need to explain- but now is not the optimal time to do so."  
The pain she had somehow expected stayed out- so she let go of her breath that had lodged in her throat. "What the actual hell?"  
"..." Sam paused before speaking. "Due to the nature of the trauma inflicted upon your nervous system through interfacing with the remnant vault, a closer link was necessary."  
"What?-" She clung to the sides of her bed. "What exactly- did you do?" She spoke in a mix of anger and fear.   
"To access more of your in-built cybernetics a deeper link was necessary."  
Shepard fell silent.  
Only after a while did she speak again.   
"Exactly what information can you obtain from me?"  
"At current. Your body's functions are normal with the exception of increased brain activity in the prefrontal cortex. All within tolerances."  
"So you can access my body functions?" Shepard asked. "Yes." Sam answered. "As well as your neurological implants."  
"What does that entail?" She asked with paranoia building.  
"It means Sam is able to measure your neuro transmitter levels." The Doctor turned back from his station and walked to her bedside. "Correct" Sam added. "I cannot access your memories or thoughts." The Ai added as if he was reading her mind.  
"This cannot be undone?"  
"No." Dr.Carlyle spoke quietly. "Not likely. In overtaking your implants Sam needed to re-write their code. His absence will impair their functionality."  
Shepard held herself quiet. Chaos warred with her rationality and paranoia with her sense of trust that Sam had earned over the days. But even then. If it cannot be changed, she'd have to adapt.  
She laid back down and closed her eyes. "Can we have some privacy doc?" She asked. She had some difficult questions for her now forced-upon-her partner.

"Exactly what are you, Sam?" She asked as Dr. Carlyle obliged by pulling some curtains around her bed.   
"An Ai developed for the Andromeda Initiative."  
"Beyond that." Shepard asked. Sam did not seem to get the question judging by his answer. "I support the human pathfinder in finding new suitable colony locations and dealing with whatever obstacles the pathfinder may come across. I also function as a super-computer to aid the science teams aboard the Hyperion and the Nexus."  
Shepard sighed somewhat gentle.  
"Who created you?"  
"I was designed by the Initiative in conjunction with the Geth and Quarian scientists. My personality subroutines have been imparted on me by Alec Ryder, who aided in perfecting me."  
"Alright." She closed her eyes. "Is your system architecture heuristically based or a gestalt consciousness like the Geth?"  
"I am heuristically based." Sam answered. "You seem to have knowledge considering Ai, despite that you distrust against me? I do not understand."  
Somewhere, Shepard felt a bit of a jab. She was beginning to trust him, maybe even like him. But couldn't blame him for feeling this way.  
"I am not adverse to synthetic life, Sam." She turned on her side, curling up under her blanket. "On the contrary. I owe the lives of my crew to an Ai- EDI. She was created by Cerberus, and my helmsmen, Joker unchained her when we were being boarded by the collectors." The memories danced before her eyes.  
"Not to mention Legion. He was a terminal of the Geth who fought with us against the collectors and the reapers. In the end he sacrificed himself so that the Geth would fully become self-aware and every single process would be sentient. And I helped him do it. " She inhaled deep.  
"Then, why so you see me with such distrust?" Sam asked with actual emotion layered into his synthetic voice. It caught Shepard off-guard.  
"...that- wasn't entirely your fault." She spoke slow. "I was angry Sam. Still am. They shipped me to Andromeda without my say in the matter. I had people back in the milky way who I never got to even say goodbye to." She wiggled her feet slowly. "Then here I got thrown into a mess I never asked for. It is a thing all organics do. Redirecting anger."  
"More than that-" Shepard rolled back on her back. "I had bad experiences with machines being in my head all of a sudden. You could say we got off on the wrong foot. ...I am sorry about that." She placed her wrist over her eyes.   
"I see. I understand. No apology is necessary commander." Sam responded. "Alec Ryder and I had a unique exchange of information." Sam continued. "His interface with me was as deep as ours is now. This allowed me to interpret and understand human behavior, amongst other things. It allows me to see into the world from a unique perspective."  
"...so you are curious. So to say?" She asked with a voice that was going on to sleepy.   
"It is the core of my programming."  
"Then how about this as a compromise." Shepard felt the pull of sleep on her. "Don't ever influence me through my implants. And don't share anything about me to the outside unless it has my specific consent."   
"Including medical data?."  
She thought about that a while. "Listen. I trust you to a certain degree, Sam. I’d say use your best judgment." She stared into the bulkhead. "Just know I really am done with people knowing more about me then myself."  
"I will effort to keep you up to date on new possibilities opened up by our link."  
"Yeah- about that-..." she groaned as she felt herself growing tired by the minute. "Just send it to me in a mail. I'll-" she yawned. "-get around to reading it."  
"affirmative"  
"Then you can watch the world through my eyes....." She whispered and seemed to nod off. Only to shoot back up again. "But you will give me a break of that when I ask it." Her tiredness made her words slur, and thus lose all bite.   
"Of course commander."  
Right before she passed out she was certain the good doctor had drugged her somehow, in some way. Because she felt herself nodding off into a dream-less sleep once again.

**The Tempest, high standard orbit around Aya, Onaon System, Heleus Cluster, Andromeda**

"She has woken up, but our doctor has issued her to rest for at least twenty-four hours. To help heal the damage." Harper spoke to both Jaal and the Moshae, who were seated together on the observation deck whilst overseeing Aya's atmospheric data pour in.  
"Will there be permanent damage?" The Moshae stood with the dignity befitting her position.   
"Most likely not." Cora policed her face in a smile. "How is Aya looking?"  
"Better. But it is a slow process."The Moshae nodded. "Your Ai has helped us in establishing communications with several of Aya's city magistrates and Aya's governor" Jaal added.  
"Could you explain to me how exactly commander Shepard disabled the vault?" The Moshae asked. Cora held herself in a light parade rest.   
"I believe the best one to ask is Sam." She looked up.

"The commander and I have accessed the remnant vault systems and have disconnected Aya's vault from the network, allowing it to function autonomously according to pre-existing specs."  
"So it is not disabled?" Jaal asked.   
"No. Parameters indicated it will return to function within your originally established parameters."  
The two Angara looked at one another with somewhat of relief.   
"We are grateful" The Moshae spoke, and met Harpers eyes. "I'd like to speak with your commander when she has recovered."  
"Certainly. Do not hesitate to request whatever you need in the meanwhile." Cora smiled, then turned to Jaal.   
"Have the initiative's resources arrived on time?"  
"Yes." Jaal answered without looking up. "To say we are wary is an understatement, but need will have them overcome this hesitance."  
"I am glad so" Cora nodded and then made her leave for the bridge. "Kallo, any sign of possible Kett activity in the area?"  
"Still negative." The Salarian answered. "Let us hope our luck holds then" Cora spoke as she leant on the back of the Salarian's chair. He gave no reply.

A day-cycle later, Aya was looking better. As was Shepard for that matter, after a hefty dose of caffeine and breakfast. When she finished her last bite, she felt the Tempest's engines rev up.   
"Are we going somewhere?" She asked, feeling a tad too hung-over to be sassy.   
"To the planet." Nihlus answered as he was kicked back in a chair in the vehicle bay. Working on a shot-gun mod. "We are returning the Moshae to her home. Glad to see you up and about again." His mandible flicked slightly.   
"Yeah- I am not so glad." She sighed. "Whatever that thing did to my head, it triggered a load of memories I got to relive whilst napping."  
The turian rose his brow. "Well, considering the shit you have been through-"  
Shepard groaned and held herself up to a support pylon.   
"...you really look like a mess. You know that?" Worry resounded primarily in his tone.   
"Yeah, well. In those memories I still had my crew."   
"Oh, so I'm not good enough, I get it" The torin teased.  
"Shut up." She sighed. When she felt a talon on her shoulder she turned around to face Nihlus. "You know, maybe this helps a little." His emerald eyes turned inward. "In Turian belief there is such a thing as spirits. The spirit of a group, a ship, a planet or a crew. It's said it is born from comradery, from loyalty and love. And when born, even if that unit, or crew dies. It's spirit will remain forever with those affiliated with it."  
Shepard felt a brick grow in her throat. She'd like to think she was too 'sane' for that. But that was before everything she knew ceased to be the way it always had been. With the reapers and ancient Ai's being possible, how could she out rightly dismiss this from being possible?...  
At least this she wanted to be possible. 

"Thanks Nihlus." She whispered and forced her feelings back into the room she always stuffed them in before they threatened to overwhelm her.   
"It is a nice sentiment." She forced a smile of shattered glass over her lips for him, before turning away onto the bottom deck corridor. The ship was locked in its decent, she could hear it's heat shields feeding the thermal energy off into storage. Time to hit the bridge before the party started.

The landing threw her down the ladder and straight onto her ass. By the time the head-splitting pain ceased, she was being hauled straight back to sickbay by Dr.T'Perro to get her head-wound sealed up.  
Being released twenty minutes later with a temper rivaling Sur'Kesh's storm systems she appeared on the bridge to find Harper and Kallo.   
"Status?" She groaned as she tried not to take out her anger on innocent souls.   
"We have landed on Aya with permission from the Moshae and the Angaran resistance who run this settlement. But have not been given permission to disembark yet."  
"...what happened while I was out?" She tried to stitch the bits of information together.  
"We landed to bring the Moshae back." Harper turned to her. "She has asked for our patience and time to prevent incidents. The Angara people are quite shaken from their vault's malfunction still. And thanks to the Kett they are wary of us."  
"To say the least" Kallo supplemented.  
"So we wait until the coast is clear and hope no AA gun decides to vaporize us on the landing pad?" Shepard asked sounding a tad more apathy then she meant to.   
"Basically" Kallo joined her with the same tone of voice, causing the commander to smirk a moment.   
"Great, I love diplomacy." She inhaled deep. "How long ago have the Moshae and Jaal left?"  
"Approximately forty-five minutes ago" Harper answered.   
"There have not been any Angaran threats to ship safety?" Shepard asked.   
"None." Harper answered. "But we keep a wary eye."  
Shepard nodded. "Good. I don't think anything like that will happen but you never know with my luck."  
"Mh" Harper turned to her. "How are you doing commander?" The interest seemed genuine, if only to judge if she had gone crazy yet or not.  
"Bruised but dealing with it" Shepard sighed deep. "We only get one shot at a good first impression, so I will get myself ready. You have the bridge."  
"Yes commander. Who do you want with you when we are granted permission to disembark?"  
"You and Krykk. You seem like the most stable two on this ship. And we need stable for diplomacy. You will need to make up for the mistakes I will no doubt make." Shepard figured downright admitting this wasn't her strong suit was better than hiding it and then fucking up their only shot at a friend in Heleus.  
"Don't worry we will make sure you won't make an ass of yourself" The spectre grinned.  
"We will make this a success, Pathfinder" Cora Harper spoke with determination.  
'With, or without me' Shepard added in her mind, but even when it originally was meant skeptical, it actually assured her. 

"Commander, the Angara have just made contact." Harpers voice came over the comm. "Permission has been given for three souls to disembark, unarmed and with strict protocol to follow. We are to be escorted to the city hall, where we will meet with the Moshae, the commander of the resistance and the governor of Aya."  
"Got it, thank you Harper" Shepard spoke as she pushed the wrinkles out of her uniform. "Are you ready Krykk?" She stepped out of the cargo-bay dressed in her official Pathfinder white dress uniform, designed specifically for these kinds of occasions. The Initiative emblem was embroided on it with pure handwork, alongside with her badge reflecting her rank.   
"Perfectly so" The smug spectre answered from the corridor, dressed in a deep red suit. Harper then joined her in the vehicle bay by means of the lift, equally well dressed in her initiative dress uniform.   
"You two should have told me there is a uniform for this kind of thing. I feel left out" The spectre teased with his arms crossed.   
"Maybe the Nexus has a proper design schematic somewhere. I'll have them ready one for you when we dock again."   
"Right, here is hoping on another friendly civilization" He chuckled as the ramp lowered. Warm, sweet smelling air brushed their faces as air from Aya mingled with the ship's air.   
When Shepard took the lead in walking down the ramp, she saw Angara soldiers frame the edge of the catwalk to what almost seemed to be a city suspended in air and foliage. Massive clouds intermingled with blue sky and a most impressive sight of greenery and colorful sail canopy's dotting the horizon.  
The warmth of the planet almost felt like an embrace. Only if you tried could you still smell the burnt wood. The strong breeze kept the clouds of ash well below them, as Shepard noticed they were 'quite' high up.  
"Please keep moving." A soldier spoke as Shepard stood almost awestruck as the catwalk took them past a waterfall that must move tons of water by the second. She forced her feet onward to meet the Angara who stood in their path.   
She had a small build and ornamental face paint gracing her full lips and exotic eyes.  
"Welcome to Aya. I will bring you to our city hall."

"This city is amazing." She had never seen this type of architecture before. The houses hugged the steep cliffs and were almost built like natural flats, dancing around the massive trees that defied gravity and the countless streams of water.   
No city she ever knew of was built on the top of mountains like this. And somehow the Angara had succeeded in making it look like it was easy with a timeless grace given to their designs. Gardens and squares mixed with houses and museums in ways she had simply never seen before.   
"We take great pride in our skyward cities." Her Angaran guide spoke. She had been quiet uptil now, but as she spoke Shepard saw the pride reflect in her eyes.  
"How does this not collapse?" Nihlus asked. "And how do you still manage to respect the landscape in the way you do?"  
The Angara smiled. If Jaal had been a measure to go by this was a true smile at that. "Sadly I cannot show you more of our city at this time. But if permitted I'd be glad to give you a tour if my government permits it and tell you all about our city."  
Shepard felt endeared by her optimism, but did not feel entirely deserving of it yet. Nor did the other Angara all share it. Shepard was forcing herself not to pay too much mind to the crowd they were drawing, but she could tell there was more negativity and distrust then the careful enthusiasm demonstrated by the young Angara leading them along the heavily guarded road.  
Ascending the steps that led to the town hall was giving her the jitters, but once the doors were opened before her she saw the three delegates waiting in three different moods. Happy, Apprehensive and defensive.   
The happy one approached her first of all three, it was no one less than the Moshae herself.   
"Commander Shepard. I am glad to see you have recovered so well." She wrapped her warm fingers around Shepards rather tense ones.   
"Do not be nervous" She smiled as she looked into her eyes. "Say what you have come to say."  
"I will try" Shepard answered a little more honest then she probably should be. It caused the Moshae to carry a warm smile. She thought. Angara expressions were still unknown territory, mostly.   
She steeled herself as she walked towards the other two dignitaries, chanting all the do's and don’ts from the Pathfinder diplomatic interactions handbook. When she arrived face to face with an Angara who was even taller than Jaal, and she found herself stuck for words, out went the handbook again.  
"I am Shepard. Pleased to meet you." She turned from the big male to the other female to repeat the greeting.   
"I am Paaran Shie, Planetary governor of Aya." The female Angara with a deep blue color looked the part of governor, Shepard noticed, with her ornamental, almost tiara like decoration on her forehead.  
"This here" She continued. "Is Evfra de Tershaav"  
"I command the Angara resistance forces." The male spoke with a rich but worn voice.

\- - -

"I fucked up. I fucked up so bad." Shepard sat head-desking in the war room/observation deck, built in by supplies they had picked up left and right. She was desperately trying to not give herself a concussion- but it seemed so much easier to just knock herself out and get replaced as pathfinder.   
Diplomacy- the formal kind- was just really _not_ her thing.  
"It isn't so bad" Kosta tried as he stood behind her. "For all we know screaming is part of their culture- in a positive way." He tried.  
"...right. Positively negative." Shepard groaned.   
"Look at it from the bright side, we haven't been shot at." Nihlus offered.  
"Yet." Shepard sighed. 

Safe to say it had gone dramatically. But why exactly- that eluded her. One moment they were talking about exchanging diplomats and taking a few brave Angara back with them to the Nexus- and the next- everything had gone to shit. Evfra was arguing loudly with the other two Angara delegates whilst pointing at her accusatory.   
"You cannot expect a people that has been wounded and betrayed by trusting aliens before to be assured we mean no harm after a single diplomatic meeting." Harper sat with her arms crossed at the wooden table.   
"Right. But the fact they are denying us permission to ascend into orbit and leave Aya is- disconcerting. To put it mildly" Kallo spoke without his usual vigor.  
"Ye don't think they will put us on trial now would ye?" Suvi asked with a worried look.   
"Maybe. If this is about what I think it is." 'Kadara'... "He spoke about Kadara. Apparently a bunch of initiative species took up residence there and turned it into a pirate port, according to Jaal. "  
"Ouch.. that’s not a very good first impression- no.."  
Shepard rolled her eyes around in their sockets. "We need to deal with that situation." She narrowed her gaze. "We cannot risk making another enemy in this hell hole."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is a new chapter, I hope you all enjoyed reading it! I've been ill so my writing schedule is messed up- my apologies for that.   
> o/ Here is to hoping I can write another one.


End file.
